


House of the Dragon

by laikaspeaks



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dragons, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Church!Byleth, Dragon My Unit | Byleth, Dragon!Byleth, F/F, Female My Unit | Byleth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2020-12-17 17:55:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 23,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21058559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laikaspeaks/pseuds/laikaspeaks
Summary: Rumors say a demon prowls the hills around Garreg Mach..When a young Edelgard is rescued from imprisonment and awakens in Garreg Mach Monastery she is certain that all is not as it seems, but the truth is far stranger than she imagined..Byleth has always been Lady Rhea's sword in the shadows, a creature without fear or mercy. She had no desire to step into the light... until the will of the imperial princess bent her to new purpose.





	1. Dragon Route: Unlocked

* * *

**Blue Sea Moon (July) - 1176**

* * *

The last thing Edelgard remembered was staring at the stone ceiling. The dull awareness that she didn't even have the strength to be terrified. Her lungs were clogged with smoke. Every part of her burned and she couldn’t escape. Not the pain, not the dark, not these four walls. Not the rats that gnawed at her, grown brave from her unresponsiveness. Those least of all. If she heard the screams and the sound of battle, if she felt the careful arms that cradled her and carried her into the night, it didn't register before the unconsciousness swallowed her whole.

In the next breath she was struggling against soft linens.

"Welcome to Garreg Mach Monastery," a voice said, "You're safe now."

“I very much doubt that.” Edelgard murmured before she could think better of it, blinking against the searing daylight.

"You are under the protection of the goddess. How could you not be safe in these hallowed walls?" The woman's smile was so gentle and calm even in this situation, that made a chill run down Edelgard's spine. Lady Rhea was seated in a chair at her bedside, and it was so divorced from her last memory that Edelgard wondered if she was hallucinating. She was tall and stately as all the stories said, dressed in an ornate headdress and trailing white dress. Her edges warped and bled in the multicolored light cast by the stained glass windows.

Edelgard might be only fourteen but she was an imperial princess. She was educated in politics and tactics almost as soon as she could speak. How did the archbishop of the _ church of Seiros _know where to find her prison? What were the odds that she would do so directly after the - Edelgard shuddered - after the crest implanted in her body finally took hold?

She wasn’t so easily deceived. Even in a fog of pain and exhaustion it felt wrong.

“Sleep, dear child,” Rhea’s hand pressed against her cheek, and Edelgard’s thoughts retreated into a cloying haze. “All will be revealed in time.”

When she woke again Rhea was gone, and she saw the woman only rarely. That suited her just fine. Instead a quiet, green-haired girl named Flayn brought her meals but little else, neither conversation nor news of the outside world. That alone made her more worried than anything else, but she couldn’t tell if it was purposeful or merely a side effect of Flayn’s timid nature. In any case lingering illness forced her into a simple schedule. Sleep, eat, sleep some more. Pace the room if she had the energy, or was simply driven to stubborn restlessness by so much bedrest. Of course there was little hope of her recovery remaining peaceful. Edelgard wasn’t that lucky.

It started with a row of stones on her balcony railing. On the second floor.

Fresh from that place the unexpected became terrifying. Was it a warning? A threat? Someone was getting into her room without her knowledge _ while she was in it, _ and that alone was enough to send her mind into fearful spirals.

Days turned into weeks and the fear died down to a dull pinprick when she saw something new appear on a windowsill or table in her quarters. More pebbles, usually. Sometimes sweets - she never touched those, and they did not appear again after a few times. Other days she might find a silver thimble, lengths of bright silk thread, or a cluster of soft owl feathers tied with twine. On one memorable occasion, a little nest with fragments of sky-blue eggshells.

She wasn't quite sure when these odd little offerings shifted from disquieting to anticipated.

Perhaps it was that she wasn't yet strong enough to leave her single room... or frankly, brave enough. Every morning she found herself checking if the door was unlocked, but any attempt to actually open it made her heart pound in her throat. She couldn't know that this fear, this pain set her into motion like a piece on a chessboard, pushing her toward a path of blood and suffering. Couldn’t know that this future was all-but preordained design. A change in the time and place wouldn't change the fabric of her heart.

Then one night she jerked free from a nightmare at exactly the wrong time, and a hand clapped over her mouth to muffle a scream.

“I heard you crying, but you were only dreaming.” The words were hastily assembled and fumbled into place. “You’re safe.”

A lot of questions were abruptly answered. Small stones, sweets, and owl feathers, not the actions of a threatening adult but a child’s clumsy gifts. She should have realized. Would have realized if everything in her weren’t scraped screaming raw. Edelgard stopped struggling and a slight figure withdrew to the foot of her bed.

Edelgard scrambled to light a candle, and nearly dropped the candlestick in her hurry to lift it so she could see.

The single light obscured as much as it revealed, rendering the figure a series of impressions more than a whole. Fine-boned features framed with a mane of shoulder length hair. Budding horns. Clawed hands with scales up to the elbow. A long, slowly flicking tail. Her leather armor so closely matched the dull grey of her scales that it took Edelgard a moment to realize that it was in fact armor, and only because it creaked subtly as she backed away from Edelgard's sudden motion. What stuck with Edelgard - beyond the horns and claws - was the fact that the girl couldn't be more than two or three years older than Edelgard herself.

There was a simple curiosity in the way she tilted her head to study Edelgard, peering from the very edge of the circle of candlelight. Her gaze glinted an unnaturally deep, pure blue, like the glass eyes of Edelgard’s childhood dolls.

“Why are you here?” Edelgard hissed. Panic, disbelief, fear? They came in such quick succession that they collided and splintered, leaving stunned calm in their wake. “What do you want? What do you mean you heard me - how could you possibly have - were you here? In my room?”

It was a foreboding thought.

“No. I heard you crying from… far away?” The tilt of the girl's head turned the statement into a question, rather than any shift in cadence or expression.

Edelgard watched warily, piecing together the events of the last few months. "How... how far away did you hear me?"

"The first time?"

"The first time." Edelgard repeated. "Yes. Tell me about that."

Edelgard winced at the tone that leaked into her voice and almost apologized, but if the girl was offended by the reques phrased as an order she didn't voice any objection. Instead she offered her open hand. A crest flared in her palm, flooding the room with a bright, steady light. The same crest that flickered to life in Edelgard's chest in response, suffusing her body with a gentle warmth. It was like a lyre string drawn taut between them, plucked by an unseen hand so that the resonance sank right down to her bones.

"Someone tried to take me. I let them." The girl tilted her head again, as if puzzled. "You were there, in a hidden place. I heard you because we're the same."

The confusion that flashed over her features was gone as soon as it came. She clenched her clawed hand to extinguish the crest, and stood abruptly enough to make Edelgard's heart jump. Then she stalked over to the open window and plopped down on the frame, staring out into the moonless night. "Go to sleep. I'll keep watch. You'll be safe."

What little faith Edelgard ever possessed was seared out of her long ago... but somehow she believed those simple words. "What's your name?"

A pause. "Byleth."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my "Green Dragon Route" AU, aka "Byleth was raised by the church" AU, but that's more of a mouthful. Sort Version: f!Byleth was raised by Rhea instead of Jeralt, meanwhile Edelgard is freed from her captors earlier than in the canon timeline, altering future events.
> 
> That said, let me know what parts you like the best! Start a discussion my guys, I love it.


	2. Healing Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shortly after Edelgard's rescue - and before her meeting with Byleth - Flayn has to deal with the fallout of Byleth's actions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Symxalia for reading over this chapter! You're getting credit whether you like it or not you little shit.

* * *

**Blue Sea Moon (July) - 1176**

**Flashback: Three Days After Edelgard's Rescue**

* * *

The hall where Flayn found Byleth was one of the least traveled in the monastery, tucked between the roof of the cathedral and the bell towers - it was long used for storing unused furniture and little else. At the far end was a small room with a door that a human could touch and still not know it was there. Her father, Seteth, saw to that. Their guest was quite important, so much so that they hadn't worked out what to do. In the meantime Flayn's only concern was healing, which was fortunate because this patient was a bit difficult.

“Were you coming to get me? It’s a good thing I decided to come and check on her then, isn’t it?”

Byleth nodded. Flayn was relieved to see her scales were already starting to darken to their usual healthy steel-grey. When she stumbled into Flayn's room with a limp body in her arms they were pale as ash.

“We’ll go check on her, then. Come with me.” Byleth more closely resembled Rhea and Seteth in some of her habits - she slept only rarely, unlike Flayn herself. She prowled the monastery for most of the night, and long ago took to waking Flayn when she noticed one of the healer’s patients was in trouble. Seteth didn’t know either of these things, and Flayn was going to keep it that way.

As far as the patient, Edelgard’s problem was quickly clear. Their guest was pale as a sheet, her face twisted in terrible fear. Flayn let out a slow breath. She wished for a fraction of her old power. Poor thing kept tearing her wounds open by thrashing in her sleep, and neither magic nor medicine could work without time.

Byleth dropped to prop her chin on the edge of the bed, eye level with Flayn’s hands.

Flayn placed a hand on Edelgard’s forehead and gathered a wisp of soothing magic into her palm. The tension in Edelgard’s body melted away by degrees, until her breathing came slow and even as a deep sleep. Even then the girl frowned in her sleep, Flayn noted with amusement, tucking the blankets a little further up against the evening chill. She have some peace for several hours at least.

Was Rhea like this as a child? Edelgard had such a calculating gaze when she was awake, even under several layers of magic to soothe pain. Flayn could imagine her being much like this serious girl, with a regal bearing she hadn’t quite grown into yet. It was a cute thought.

Byleth stirred at the girl’s bedside, drawing Flayn’s gaze. Clawed fingertips settled gently on a dark, ugly welt wrapping around Edelgard’s wrist. She spoke the healing words perfectly, but nothing happened.

Flayn sighed and nudged Byleth aside with her hip. “Let me.”

Byleth watched placidly as the bruise subsided then she reached out to the next, a tangle of scratch marks running up Edelgard's inner arm. Byleth spoke the words again - nothing. Byleth’s expression didn’t change, but it made Flayn’s heart clench all the same.

The crest of flames bolstered Byleth’s strength and made her injuries heal more quickly, but that was not magic in the strictest sense. Faith and Reason were both disciplines of the soul. There was no magic in Byleth, either to heal or wound.

After a long moment Flayn rolled up her sleeves and reached deep to gather another fistful of healing magic. Flayn didn’t usually heal injuries this minor - not when her power was so limited - but she could make an exception this time. There were enough scars for this child to sort out when she woke.

By the time she was done, she wobbled on her feet… but she still had enough strength to catch Byleth by the collar of her shirt before she could prowl out onto the balcony. “Where do you think you’re going? Next it’s your turn.”

* * *

“It makes no sense. She’s never done something like this.” Seteth barely paused to cast a silence spell on the door before he started speaking. Flayn wasn’t actually that surprised. Despite her father’s cool behavior in public he always had a habit of leading with his teeth.

“Calm yourself, Seteth. She did no harm to our goals.” Rhea didn’t look up from gently flexing Byleth’s arm from the shoulder down to her fingers, watching for any tiny catch in the motion. From a glance it looked like the crushed arm from her little adventure healed nicely. “If anything she alerted us to a serious threat.”

Her scales were slowly creeping up from her elbows to her shoulders even as Flayn watched. Byleth’s body warped under the weight of her own power. A dragon’s power without a dragon’s _ will _ran feral, transforming flesh and bone at its own whims. Flayn gripped the damp rag in her hands more tightly, trying to focus on a stubbornly infected wound on the back of Byleth’s shoulder rather than the beginning of yet another argument.

“That is not the point, Rhea, and you know it. If she continues on this way our existence will be revealed to the humans. Your little experiment -” he jabbed a finger at Byleth “- is a threat to us all. ”

“What do you suggest we do, father?” Flayn rarely contradicted either of her elders, but when it came to Byleth _ someone _had to put their foot down.

Seteth stiffened, but he didn’t continue with his rant either.

“If you must argue about it please don’t do so now.” She flicked her eyes down to the unresponsive Byleth. He might be willing to say anything and everything in front of a child, but Flayn wouldn’t allow it. He was as beholden to her as she was to him.

He grimaced under her gaze and spun on his heel, storming out the door with as much bluster as he came.

"This is my failure, he's right. But it is a shame." Rhea murmured, gripping Byleth's chin and tilting her head to examine a bruise blooming on her cheek. "She was almost one of us."

"Even so," Flayn gently gripped Rhea's wrist and tugged her hand away, twining her fingers with Rhea's to soften the chiding, "it doesn't hurt to be kind to her, does it?"

"Yes. I suppose not." Rhea let a tired smile sneak past her guard, drooping subtly under the weight of her regalia. Flayn offered her a smile in return. Seteth might not always have full faith in Rhea, but Flayn could understand her hopes. Byleth was Sitri's daughter, and her fate was crushing. To Rhea most of all.

"We're done here, dear one." Rhea sighed, already turning to her own chambers. "Run along now, you two."

Flayn waited for Byleth to finish buttoning her shirt and then took her hand. “Come, cousin. I’ll braid your hair.”

There were humans that behaved in a similar way - some facet of the mind or body that left them silent and strange. More than a few lived out their quiet lives in the monastery. Byleth was a strange hybrid of living being and construct, kept tethered to life by the crest stone even though it wasn't hers to command. 

“Don’t take what they say to heart.” Flayn loved her dearly all the same. This girl, Rhea’s strange little granddaughter who had her mother’s eyes. “They focus on the wrong things sometimes.”

“I understand.”

Flayn faltered. In all her sixteen years, Byleth rarely spoke. Never a hint of emotion, not the whisper of _ something _that lurked in her voice now. Flayn could understand Rhea's hopes, but she could also understand her father's fears. What would become of them if she was wrong?


	3. Blood and Bone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Byleth completes a mission, and discovers that it's different than usual.

* * *

**Verdant Moon (August) - 1176**

* * *

The camp was hastily assembled. For all intents and purposes it was a cluster of tents and fires spread through the trees, with a shaky perimeter and no structures to prevent them from being surrounded by a larger force. Very little overlap between the few sentries, not much discipline in the ones they did assign. The air was heavy with alcohol and other things she didn’t really want to identify.

Byleth slipped through the underbrush. Sentries were simple enough. Trouble if they saw her of course, but first they had to sense her coming. Sometimes their eyes passed right over her, their weak senses fooled by the mottled grey of her leather armor. One made the mistake of never looking up, and another wandered just far enough for her to circle around his back. Two were otherwise engaged. It was easy enough to end them before they could send up the alarm.

It was far more difficult to get a look at every sleeping face to find a specific one without being seen herself. She finally found him huddled over a tiny fire, his breath escaping in clouds from calloused fists. She would have known him even without Rhea’s painstaking description. His armor was unusually polished, the cloak drawn close around his shoulders heavy with the scent of incense.

She hit him at a full dash, sending him careening off of a tree and crushing the chestplate into his sternum.

Byleth crouched next to the fallen former knight watched him wheeze and claw at the buckles of his armor. There was a reason she didn’t like the hard shells the knights wore. It wasn’t pliable like leather or chain, and could kill as easily as a sword if she hit the right points. Then again, it wasn’t as if a normal fighter could crush the metal with their bare hands.

“I bring a message.” She wasn’t sure why the words mattered, but that was how things were done. “May the goddess grant you mercy.”

“W-wait, please, no -” His eyes were a very pale blue, which she noted matched the description, his face ruddy from a life spent under the sun. Probably a commoner uplifted to knighthood. A shame his hard-won path ended here. “Don’t!”

She twined her hand through the crushed helmet and clasped his jaw firmly. It took little pressure and a twist to pop his skull from his spine, which severed his spinal cord in the same motion. A humane way to die. Supposedly.

Cloying copper clung to her long after she left the bodies for the animals. Normally it didn’t trouble her much, but tonight river water wasn’t enough to wash it off. She swam until her body shook with cold she barely felt. Still the scent of blood lingered.

She had tasted the blood of heretics, but never once thirsted for it. Never once did she tremble with such terrible heat behind her eyes. Not the way she did when she stepped through the splintered door and saw Edelgard, sigils carved into her flesh as though she were meat. Rhea would call it “unsightly”, that place that smelled of pain.

The memory paced restlessly inside her skull.

Which was why she ended up on the rooftop above Edelgard’s balcony, where she could hear Edelgard was awake and rustling through papers. It was against strict orders - allowing a human to see her was the ultimate taboo. That order wasn’t lifted just because Edelgard already knew she existed. Byleth tucked up against a decorative spire and let herself sink into the scratch of quill on paper.

“I know you’re there.”

“...I am.”

“Why?”

“I protect this place.” She felt bones crunching under her hands again. “That includes you.”

The silence drew out for so long that her thoughts slowly quieted, finally letting her relax against cool ceramic roof tiles. She might have no heart, but Byleth didn’t want her place in this world to disappear. Not the monastery, or Rhea, or Seteth, or Flayn. Not -

There was movement in the room below, the shuffle and creak of Edelgard using the furniture to make her way to the balcony. She braced her hands on the railing and leaned far out to peer at Byleth. She could be a phantom, bathed in moonlight with the wind plucking at her pale hair and nightgown.

Her expression was beautiful, Byleth decided. Those eyes were sharp as a blade.

“Why should I believe you?” Edelgard’s voice was strained, so quiet that the wind threatened to sweep it away.

Byleth uncoiled, slid down the roof, and snagged the railing one-handed before she could plunge to the cobbles below. The hop up onto the balcony was what drew a sharp sound from Edelgard. It was only then that Byleth realized that Edelgard had turned to face her with her grip white-knuckled around the railing.

This was why humans weren’t allowed to know.

“You don’t have to believe me.”

Byleth’s bedtime stories were thick, dusty history books and thin treatises on religion, and volumes upon volumes of books on healing. She knew the intricate machinery of the human body - whether to heal or destroy. When it came to killing she knew more than most. She _ knew  _ death.

What she didn’t know was fear. A lesson driven home when she reached out and Edelgard flinched away. She wished she had Flayn’s instinct for these things. Her efforts were clumsy in comparison, a language heard in childhood but never fully grasped.

Byleth curled her claws into her palm and very, very slowly brushed the back of her knuckles against Edelgard’s cheek. She forgot in that moment that a sword was not a shield, that her protection always came with bloodshed. That this promise was not hers to give.

“You are safe here. I promise.”

Edelgard ducked under her arm and retreated back into her room. Byleth slowly dropped her hand and without turning, did what she did best: she disappeared into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Symxaliaaaaa thank you for doing an edit I'm love you.


	4. Peaches and Ash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edelgard should have known that tea with Lady Rhea would be anything but pleasant.

* * *

**Verdant Moon (August) - 1176**

* * *

Edelgard should have known that tea with Lady Rhea would be anything but pleasant.

She was far from being cowed by the trappings of power, but there was something  _ off _ about Lady Rhea. The Archbishop was too perfect, too radiantly beautiful. She lit up like a stained glass window in sunlight, as if fashioned by the goddess herself merely to shine.

It set Edelgard on edge in a way she couldn’t describe. Enough so that she was the first to break the silence that took over after the social niceties were long finished. “What leads you to honor me with your presence today, Lady Rhea?”

“We finally received a reply from your father.” Rhea gently stirred a spoonful of sugar into her second cup of tea. “He agreed that you should stay here at the monastery until you’ve recovered.”

Edelgard returned her pastry to its china plate, suddenly too nauseated to stomach another bite.

Rhea blew gently on her cup, and took a smiling sip. “My, who knows how long that could take?”

The subtext made Edelgard’s blood run cold, even as her thoughts raced ahead of her body. The imperial house had been pulling away from the church within the last handful of generations, and force alone wasn’t enough to bring them back into the fold. However, this situation was a perfect excuse to keep the empire’s remaining heir hostage. The empire couldn’t even retaliate without certainly alienating the Holy Kingdom, and potentially cutting ties with a good portion of the Alliance.

Edelgard forced herself to stop. Drink her tea. Reflect. Her desperate desire to go home almost outweighed her good sense, and she needed to think clearly. This wasn’t actually a disadvantageous situation.

“Thank you for your hospitality, Lady Rhea,” she said, “I couldn’t be more grateful for your kindness.”

With that news Edelgard decided to befriend the monastery’s guardian.

Whether Byleth was actually allied with the church itself - like many things, still uncertain - she had mobility both in and out of the walls. That alone made her a potentially valuable piece, and the only one Edelgard could reach while she was still too weak to walk down stairs on her own. Edelgard grimaced every time she thought of the bridge she may have unwittingly burned. Just in case she forgot her mind helpfully played that night back at every opportunity.

From her impressions by candlelight Edelgard expected something more akin to a beast, and the reality stunned her into silence.

Byleth towered over Edelgard when she straightened to her full height, which was all the greater crowned with her pale gold horns. Even scales that looked dull pewter in darkness revealed faint, shifting rainbows by moonlight. If Edelgard weren’t standing in its light, she would have thought the moon stole down to earth in physical form.

No matter how she reflected and agonized she couldn’t explain why she ran. All she knew was that in that moment she was certain a touch could burn her down to cold ash. What was worse, that night was followed by a whole week of silence. Which meant that Edelgard would have to find a way to lure Byleth within her reach.

When Edelgard was too small to live at court, one of her caretakers religiously left offerings for the local spirits. She was old enough now to know that was probably what got the nurse released from her duties... but she remembered the care that went into that ritual. It seemed right, like the kind of thing that would attract such a strange creature.

Even so she felt foolish leaving treats on the balcony breakfast table overnight. It was perilously close to the method for coaxing a missing cat. However, against all odds it worked. The slice of cake was gone the next morning, a glittering piece of quartz in its place.

That was where her perfectionist nature came to the fore. Edelgard found herself saving part of her - far too large - meals to methodically test different dishes.

Spicy foods went untouched, as did red meat of any description. Poultry sometimes had neat bites taken out of it, as if out of forced and quickly abandoned politeness. Fish - particularly soft-bodied eels - and vegetable dishes clearly ranked highest. Any sweets, however, vanished with such speed that Edelgard was convinced that Byleth could sense the moment she turned her back. A small, honey-soaked cake disappeared plate and all.

Each dish was replaced with another trinket, but Byleth didn’t reveal herself again.

Edelgard fought back a sigh as she paced her room. She was well aware of what she was doing. She needed something - anything - to occupy her mind. She had no hope of escape for the simple reason that to do so would be very unwise. By the same token, staying in her room was slowly driving her mad and no amount of books, sewing, or drawing occupied her for long.

She dared not sit alone with her thoughts. She couldn’t.

Then like clockwork, there was a night she woke gasping and heaving from a nightmare. The hand on her forehead jerked away, and she could hear shuffling, the screech of furniture stumbled over in the dark.

“Is this how it will always be with you?” Edelgard curled her fingers into the thick down quilt, hoping that it would conceal the way they trembled. Her stomach was a yawning, black pit of horror even after the nightmare fled. It was after all a memory that plagued her sleep, not a phantom that could be banished merely by being awake. “You only seem to show up at times like this.”

“I am not the sort of thing most people want to see upon waking. Or at all.” The shadow curled neatly as a cat in a nearby armchair spoke, without a trace of accusation in her tone. “But even I wouldn’t leave you to your nightmares.”

Edelgard let out a slow breath. “You have my thanks.”

Her answer was a small tin landing on the bed with a rattle, and when Edelgard cautiously pried the lid open it released a burst of sugary citrus.

“Lemon drops?”

“Assorted.”

After a moment of hesitation Edelgard popped one into her mouth, and was rewarded with the taste of summer peaches. The flavor was so nostalgic that it made her heart ache.

She and her siblings rarely had the opportunity to gather all at once, but when they did their father delighted in pulling out boxes of candies like these for them to share. Even the eldest would bicker so loudly over their favored flavors, and it inevitably ended in wrestling matches between the younger children. Her oldest brother always palmed some of her favorites and slipped them to her with an indulgent grin. It hurt. It hurt with such violent sweetness.

Edelgard folded the memory and put it away… there was no time for grief now.

Instead she wondered idly where Byleth acquired them, rolling the round candy from one side of her mouth to the other. The sugar alone ensured that this was a rare treat, even for a princess. The more she learned the more the mysteries multiplied.

“Why do you keep doing this? There is no reason for you to continue giving me gifts, especially after I stormed out on you in such shameful fashion.” That wasn’t an apology, she realized distantly, but somehow the more she tried to put words to the feeling the more it slipped through her fingers.

Byleth stirred in her seat. “I am not good with words. Or comforting. I thought that... something good would give you strength.”

Edelgard’s instincts ran headlong into each other and locked jaws like snarling hounds. This was a weakness she could exploit. Oh, but what a weakness… a soft heart for her to mold like clay.

What a terrible thing she had become.

In the darkness she could barely make out Byleth’s hand going to her own chest, clenching in the fabric of her shirt as though pressing against a wound. “I am sorry if that displeases you.”

“Don’t trouble yourself.” Edelgard managed finally around the taste of peaches and ash. “These just remind me of times long past. It’s one pain that I am grateful to bear.”

“You like them?”

“Yes, they’re just what I needed to steel my heart. Thank you, Byleth.”

The people who forced this crest on her would never give up, not after investing so much time and effort in their experiments. They would try to capture her once more, and Edelgard knew from experience she couldn’t trust anyone else with her protection. If she didn’t want to be a victim she could only rely on herself.

She would tear this girl’s heart out and  _ eat it _ before she let them take her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will popularize terrifying Galadriel-like eldritch beauty Rhea is I have to do it all by myself.


	5. Marzipan by Moonlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edelgard and Byleth go on a late night walk.

* * *

**Horsebow Moon (September) - 1176**

* * *

Edelgard's bedroom was empty.

This sort of thing was the reason for Byleth’s nightly patrols. It was lucky that she had no further orders from Rhea tonight, so she could dedicate her time to checking up on Flayn’s patients instead. One of which was the most important. The waning moon was even on her side tonight - she could see clearly, but was not easily seen herself. Thankfully Edelgard didn’t get far. Byleth found her sitting on a step halfway down the second flight of a long staircase, face buried her hands. The steep back staircase had high steps, smooth stone walls, and no banister. She was surprised Edelgard got this far without her knees giving out.

“Are you stuck?”

“I absolutely am not.” Edelgard said into her palms. Her shoulders drew together with tension as she straightened, her hands switched clenching in the folds of her skirt. It was strange to see her in something other than soft flannels. Instead she was in the heavy woolen winter uniform - black with gold piping from head to toe, with the addition of black leggings, gloves, and shiny black boots.

At least she didn’t try to go out in her nightclothes, though Byleth wasn’t sure if it was better or worse that she hadn’t even bothered to prepare for bed.

“You’re stuck.”

“...Yes.”

“Can you still walk?”

“It’s my balance that is the problem, I certainly don’t lack for energy.” Edelgard’s lips drew into a thin line, her eyes dark. “I just… I needed to get out for a while.”

Edelgard looked between Byleth’s face and her offered hand.

“Don’t take me back yet. Please.”

“I will help you. Where do you want to go?” It would be safe enough for Byleth to help - once the gates closed there were patrols on the outer walls but almost none in the gardens. This was a peaceful era after all.

“They never did give me a tour of the monastery that Flayn promised.” Edelgard allowed Byleth to pull her up, knees wobbling only a little.“Perhaps you would care to correct that?”

She said that, but Edelgard had spent most of their walk looking at nothing in particular. Even Byleth knew the look of someone lost in thought, so she didn’t press for conversation. It was enough to be out in the cool dark, listening to the night insects singing their last songs of the year.

By the time they circled their way through the gardens and down to the pond, it was clear that Edelgard’s stamina wouldn’t hold up for the trip back. Her grip on Byleth’s elbow was tighter than when they started. Thankfully, the greenhouse had a few benches tucked into the greenery, and the building offered shelter from the slowly dropping temperature.

“Let’s stop here.” Hopefully this would be enough of an outing for the night. It was good for her to walk a little, but regaining her full strength would be a slow process.

Some of Edelgard’s injuries were surgically neat, but others… the ritual spells cut into her were the work of a careless butcher, carved so deep that the muscle and bone beneath were damaged. The result of too much study of magic and not enough of medicine. It was a testament to Flayn’s skill that Edelgard’s legs still bore her weight at all.

Thinking about it always gave Byleth a pounding headache, so she decided to focus on the warmth of the greenhouse instead. It was much nicer than the chill outside.

“The sun warms the stone during the day, and heat radiates back out at night.” The warmth always made her sleepy. When she was small she often waited until nightfall to curl up among the flowers and listen to the summer rain pelt the glass. “It stays warm all year.”

Edelgard only hummed in response.

NWOW. WHAOW.

The sound was so loud that Byleth nearly stumbled to her feet. Even though she immediately knew the culprit. A half-grown white kitten reared up on his hind legs, pawing at the greenhouse door and letting out another loud yowl. Byleth quickly relented and went to pick him up - she knew from experience he would follow her until she did. His hair was long and silky, so she had no complaints.

When he tried to bite she pushed her finger into his mouth instead of pulling away, which affronted him enough he didn’t try it again. Instead he batted at her fingers, claws only half velveted. He was ragged and gangling now, but he was going to be a handsome thing in another year or two when his tail and ruff filled out.

Byleth felt an odd little tug in her chest, and when she looked up...

Edelgard was watching. Her gaze was unreadable, but it was no longer turned to a place Byleth couldn’t reach. Perhaps she liked cats? She sat down on the bench next to Edelgard and bundled the kitten into her hands, where he immediately shoved his head firmly under Edelgard’s chin. His purr was almost deafening. “His name is Marzipan.”

Edelgard’s lips twitched. “Marzipan?”

“Like the sweet.” Byleth clarified.

Slowly but surely - as if sensing that someone, somewhere was petting cats - other cats filtered in, and Byleth took care to introduce Edelgard to each of them. She gave special attention to Marzipan’s littermates: Fritter with her broken tail, the equally noisy Sorbet, and shy Cutlet. It was Marzipan that Edelgard kept tucked against her chest, quietly tolerating his attempts to chew on strands of her hair.

Eventually he tired of the game and wiggled free from her arms, dashing out the door and into the gardens with his siblings in tow. Edelgard watched him go. “I’m ready to go back to my room now.”

The journey back was far slower, more so because Edelgard refused all but the least obtrusive help, jaw clenched around her ragged breathing. Whatever drove her wouldn’t let her slow down, and Byleth had little say in the matter. Byleth watched her struggle her way up three steps - each forcing hiss between Edelgard’s teeth - before she decided it was enough. Edelgard was lighter than she expected, and the yelp from being lifted into Byleth’s arms much louder.

“Is this really necessary?”

“Going up stairs is much harder,” she wished she had thought this explanation through before scooping Edelgard up on impulse, before making that dark look appear in her eyes again, however fleeting, “The back of your thighs hurt, yes?”

Edelgard relaxed in her arms, fingers slowly loosening their grip on Byleth’s cloak. This close, she could see that Edelgard’s cheeks were chapped red with cold. “Yes. Thank you.”

Byleth took the steps two at a time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dunno I just wanted to write something cute. Again, special thanks to my buddy Symxalia!


	6. Peeling Layers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An old friend arrives at the monastery, and Edelgard comes face to face with her poor planning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW for body horror and graphic descriptions of injury** my guys!
> 
> Also this ended up way longer than usual, whoops. 
> 
> Symxalia you rock! Thanks for always reading my shit like twenty times you're the real MVP.  
\--

* * *

**Wyvern Moon (October) - 1176**

* * *

Her new room was was objectively far nicer than the one in the bell tower. 

In another life the thick red rug under her feet and simple wooden bed and desk would have been almost insulting, but in light of the last few years they felt luxurious. She suspected it would also be quite a bit warmer as fall slipped into winter, as there was no balcony or windows to let out the heat. Privately Edelgard missed her old room, inescapable though it was. She even missed the way the cold, bare stone floor made her feet ache before the fire heated the space enough for comfort. It was worth it for the windows, and being able to breath the fresh air even late at night.

Only a little daylight filtered in from the open door, and the dark-stained wood at every turn added to the claustrophobic press of the walls. She would learn to tolerate that, if only for the fact that the dormitories set up for the nuns were closer to the ground. Short outings with Flayn and weekly midnight walks were quickly becoming unsatisfactory, even if the latter did give her chance to observe Byleth up close.

A knock at the door startled her out of her thoughts.

“Give me a moment!”

Edelgard took a deep breath. Head up. Shoulders square. She was ready to open the door… but she was not ready for what waited on the other side. She almost didn’t know how to react. The reality of the moment seeped into her awareness slowly as syrup.

“Lady Edelgard.” Hubert was stretched out so painfully gaunt, with new dark circles under his eyes. His greeting a tense smile and a perfectly executed bow.

Edelgard would never be so cruel as to say so, but Hubert took after his father even as a boy. He carried that legacy in the tilt of a head, or a flicker of a smirk, or a gesture. To most people he looked sinister. As far as Edelgard was concerned he reminded her of a reserved cat, cautious and difficult to read, but still as devoted as anyone could desire. He was as close to a brother as she had left, and she could love him no more if he were her blood.

So she allowed herself this brief weakness. She threw her arms around his waist and squeezed, earning a huff or a quiet scoff, she wasn’t sure. He returned the embrace with a long arm looped around her shoulders and his other hand settled on the top of her head. 

After a long moment, Edelgard took a step back and focused on straightening his jacket. “Forgive me, Hubert. I merely cannot contain my joy at seeing you once more.”

“I feel the same, my lady.” A glance revealed gold eyes were suspiciously moist, and even adding “my” was an unexpected concession to emotion. “There is nothing that has or ever will bring me as much joy as seeing you safe.”

“If I may ask, what are you doing here?”

Hubert lifted a brow. “I am your vassal now and always, Lady Edelgard. I am here because you are here.”

Edelgard was more surprised than anyone that she laughed. An ugly bark of a sound, but a laugh nonetheless. “You still sound just as I remember.”

“I’m told there’s high tea waiting in the gardens.” He offered her his arm, as close to playful as he ever got. “Will you allow me to accompany you?”

“I would be delighted.” 

She limped a little these days and his legs were long, but he slowed to match her new pace. In her mind that was all one needed to know to know Hubert. He was just that kind of boy. Or she corrected belatedly, that kind of man. Ever since she was small he was a constant presence, for better or worse the shadow at her side. She hesitated to ascribe feelings to him, but she liked to think that they shared the feeling of keen loss when separated. She was no safer than before, but she felt… more stable with him at her side. 

Edelgard never even questioned whether she would take him into her confidence. So after a shared meal and conversation so light that it would bore any listeners to tears much less draw suspicion, she guided him into the dense rose garden, where voices wouldn’t so easily carry. They were effectively alone, or as close as they could be in the crowded monastery. Scandalous.

“I’m not sure if this is appropriate, Lady Edelgard.”

She laughed again, and it startled her a little less each time. This old conversation again? Perhaps he needed it as much as she did… so Edelgard decided to play along. 

“You are my chaperone, Hubert. If I can’t go somewhere with you, then who?”

His lips twitched into something suspiciously close to a smile. Well it was more of a pleasant grimace, but he tried. “Perhaps you could not go at all?”

“Where, pray you, is the fun in that?”

He sighed, and it sounded less like exasperation and more like relief. “Where indeed?”

“Come along, there’s someone I need you to meet.” How exactly was she to explain Byleth? Edelgard suspected that even if she explained Hubert would think she had gone mad. She decided that the best course of action was to show him - gently, hopefully.

At first she was sure she was imagining the slowly growing hum in the back of her mind. However there was no clearer proof than Edelgard’s rescue, than her being found where by all rights her location should never have been discovered. When she closed her eyes and reached for it, the sensation was much like holding her hand over a candle, tracing the burning corona but never touching the flame. If this was even a fraction of what Byleth felt, Edelgard understood much more than she did when all this began.

"The person we're going to meet is... somewhat unusual. Please show some restraint."

"I will do my best, Lady Edelgard." A hint of bemusement made her heart warm. It reminded her of many a misadventure in their shared childhood, and it was such a pleasure to touch on a memory that didn't have an outline of tragedy.

The thread between her and Byleth lead her up the stairs - which Hubert helped her up - to her previous room. She could sense Byleth a short distance above, tucked up in the bell tower like always.

“Byleth. Come here for a moment.”

“I can’t,” came a quiet response from above the balcony. “It’s not allowed.”

Hubert moved to check the source of the voice, and Edelgard snagged his sleeve, dissuading him further with a shake of her head. He subsided, but his expression promised that she would eventually have to answer his questions.

“I swear to you on my life, Byleth. Hubert is my right hand and a dear friend, you can trust him.”

Edelgard trusted Hubert implicitly, but she wasn’t sure that Byleth trusted her in turn. She couldn’t be certain if their previous meetings were a whim. Strange, how that made something suspiciously close to her heart clench. The silence lasted so long that Edelgard would think Byleth left if she didn't know otherwise. Then Byleth landed on the balcony with a soft thump, and it made Edelgard’s breath catch in her chest. She did. She trusted Edelgard enough.

_ “What is that?” _ Hubert growled.

Edelgard would never admit how often she tried to commit this creature to paper in the last month. All her classical training was nothing in the face of joints that swiveled in ways that didn’t make sense, and a grace that was so far beyond animal she couldn’t begin to guess what it  _ did _ resemble. Fear faded to familiarity, until Edelgard forgot what the monastery’s guardian might look like to a stranger. 

Edelgard heard it before she saw it - Hubert’s hands flared with churning miasma, held in place only by the thinnest thread of magic control.

“Hold, Hubert!”

It was surreal and nauseating to see those serene, beautiful features snap and warp. The only way to describe it was that she roiled, like something writhing and shapeless barely contained by skin. Scales crawled up Byleth’s neck and over the curves of her cheeks, and her hands twisted and sharpened with painful crackling noises. Even her previously elegant wyvern-like branched horns spiraled into points, arched and curled down against the curve of her jaw like the horns of a ram.

The rattling sound that tore out of Byleth’s throat was inhuman and - somehow for the first time since they met - a chill of fear raced down Edelgard’s spine.

“Hubert,” Edelgard breathed, not daring to look away, “Please put that away.”

There was no fear or anger - Edelgard had yet to see an emotion that strong in Byleth - but it was as close as she ever noticed. Byleth’s entire body crackled with wariness, like an animal prowling just out of reach of a torch. 

_ “Hubert.” _

That piercing gaze didn’t leave Hubert until the black magic fizzled out, and only once it had did Byleth subside ever so slowly back to her impassive silence. Edelgard let out a shaky breath. “Thank you.”

That reaction was interesting. She would make a note of this. 

“Hubert, this is Byleth. She rescued me from… where I was being held.” It was only as she spoke that she realized there was so much left to tell Hubert. She was grateful she had a chance. “She helped me extensively before you arrived. There is no need to fear.”

Edelgard wasn’t sure exactly what she expected from Hubert. Certainly not a bow, almost as low as he would for Edelgard herself. Byleth ducked lower behind the bed at the motion, peering at him with renewed wariness.

“If Lady Edelgard speaks truly my gratitude is boundless, and I cannot apologize enough for my behavior. I only wish I could reward you as you deserve.” It was truly a feat that he managed to make a heartfelt statement sound like a threat. His face was too composed, she thought, he was indulging her but didn't trust their newest ally at all despite his words.

He didn’t raise his head for a long moment.

Byleth’s scales slowly receded. The curved horns split and the individual sections drew thin, twining upward like vines into the short, upright horns Edelgard best recognized. She couldn’t tear her eyes away, even though the sight made her head hurt.

By the time he straightened Byleth looked much like her usual self. She propped her chin on the edge of the bed, eyes reflecting the light like mirrors... and inhaled deeply. 

“He smells like fish.”

_ “I beg your pardon?” _

“I like herring too.” Her voice was flat as ever. 

Edelgard bit the inside of her cheek, pretending not to notice Hubert subtly sniffing the sleeve of his own cloak. That was going to have her snickering every time she thought about it for ages.

“With that introduction aside I would like both of you to look at something.” 

Edelgard pulled a furled map out of the bag at her hip and spread it out on the bed, weighing the corners with some of the rounded stones that she had yet to transfer to her new room. 

“Byleth, I need to know something about that night.” This was a question she always intended to ask, but she found her voice steadier with Hubert’s familiar presence at her shoulder. “Where did you find me? Please. I need to know.”

Byleth hesitated with her hand over the map, then deliberately curled her claws into her palm before settling a knuckle on the parchment. “Here.” 

Hubert hissed between his teeth. “That  _ is _ something.”

The disused Hresvelg summer palace, near the border between Ferghus and the Empire - an excellent choice, she could admit. The area was comprised almost entirely of ghost towns and had been since before her grandfather’s time. The weather was often warm for the region, and the old wine cellars ran deep. 

It had the additional benefit of being a property her family owned, distant from the main thoroughfares of the empire but well-maintained enough for easy access to supplies. The people who took her would barely even need to lie. It wouldn’t be strange for the last remaining Hresvelg heir to stay there to recover from a deadly illness, both quarantined for public safety and protected from the pressures of a life at court. 

It was so clever it made her stomach churn. 

She traced the distance between the two points, and another thought struck her to stillness. “Why were you so far afield? You rarely seem to leave the monastery.”

“I was in the area.”

“That is dodging the question.” Hubert said, eyes narrowing. Edelgard didn’t intervene - she didn’t disagree. Byleth had answers she desperately needed, and she couldn’t back down this time. 

“Yes.” She spoke no further.

Edelgard schooled her expression to something more neutral, lest her disappointment show too keenly. "Would you... care to elaborate on that, Byleth?"

"No."

“You should answer Lady Edelgard’s question.” Edelgard recognized the hand sign a split second too late. A habit of his from childhood, one of his nasty little homebrew spells that sent her older brothers running. It itched and burned, and he always did like using the mild version to make his touch skin-crawling. He would do anything for Edelgard, even something incredibly stupid. Even attempt to intimidate something that shouldn't be intimidated.

Hubert didn’t even touch Byleth - she jerked away with a snarl before he could, but her skin bubbled under the ghost of his fingertips. In the next moment Byleth was clutching her spasming arm to her chest, hand contorting, skin peeling from flesh like dried paint, flesh blistering and blackening as though held to a fire. Her face was motionless.

...But the flame, the flickering presence in the back of Edelgard’s skull  _ wailed.  _

Edelgard made the mistake of blinking, and Byleth was gone. 

“Hubert. Why.” She whirled on her most beloved friend, ready to throttle him for failing to consider the consequences of his actions. 

“That spell shouldn’t have done that.” He was staring very hard at his hands, barely registering her anger. “It can cause pain, but the side effects are a rash at worst…”

“You shouldn’t have been doing it  _ at all.  _ I have never known you to show such poor judgement.”

She closed her eyes and rubbed at her temples, forcing herself to shut down the anger and disgust before it could get out of hand. She shouldn’t snap. He was overcompensating to make up for lost time - this was as much her fault as Hubert’s. Edelgard should have explained more carefully. She should have kept her promise. She should have kept control. 

Edelgard rolled up the map and put it away, then turned to leave. 

“Where are you going?”

Edelgard sighed, doing her best to suppress the sick churning in her stomach. The wail in the back of her head was growing ever more insistent, a chill settling tense in her shoulders and creeping down her arms like remembered pain. She should probably tremble with fear at the sensation - humans weren't built to be bound close as the space between one breath and the next. Perhaps she would, when she had time to examine what it meant. For now she had much to do and little time to consider.

“I’m going to find her. I’m not certain she has anyone to help with her injury.” She never asked, and it felt like an unforgivable error in the light of what just happened.

Hubert wavered, as he so rarely did. 

“I will accompany you. I will make my apologies later, when time is not of the essence." He said finally, and offered his arm. She accepted it. There was little he didn’t know, but there was one thing that she kept close and secret: she could forgive him anything. His actions were hers, her actions were his - that was the price of being master and shadow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically any design you're imagining for dragon!Byleth is canon to this fic. She's an eldritch abomination like grandma Seiros, just in a different way.


	7. Vacant Throne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edelgard is looking for answers. Byleth has never had to talk so much in her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW for: general gore, burn injuries, debriding a wound aka removing damaged tissue via cutting or abrasion**  
Okay this should be the last chapter for a while that requires trigger warnings! Thanks for holding out, all!
> 
> Once again: Thank god for Symxalia they save you from so much stupid shit, y'all.

* * *

**Wyvern Moon (October) - 1176**

* * *

_ “You will simply have to find other ways to serve, dear one.”  _ It was almost a relief the first time Lady Rhea pressed a dagger into her hand. It was permission to stop grasping for things out of her reach.

Her first kill was a mage. She was too inexperienced to recognize that he was a caster as well as a swordsman. Made the mistake of slipping too close too carelessly and he spun, whacking the pommel of his sword against her jaw. His other hand swung with the same motion, and the fire flaring on his fist was the last thing she saw. The scent of burning flesh seared into her mouth in the split second before even her sense of taste burned away. When she came back to herself her teeth were buried in his throat.

Her mission was a success, though she had to crawl blindly back to the monastery on her own. 

The next kill was easier, the next easier still. 

Piece by piece she became a manhunter, a predator. What was there to do but follow the path at her feet? 

“There you are.”

Byleth pried her drowsy eyes open, only slowly realizing that she was wedged under a familiar set of stairs. The long, narrow staircase was about her arm-span wide, with thick wooden planks wedged between the stones. One wall ended just a bit short of the foot of the stairs, which left a small triangular gap just barely large enough for her to squeeze through. The hollow space underneath was probably once a storage area before being walled up and forgotten, the wooden casks and crates left to gather dust. Between this secret alcove and the fact cellars beneath the monastery were seldom trafficked at night, it was a good place to hide from Flayn. It wouldn't be good if the healer find out about the work she did for Lady Rhea.

Only one person would or could find her here.

A slim, gloved hand slipped through the gap, palm up. “I left Hubert upstairs, he won’t trouble us. Won’t you come out? ”

Byleth’s body was already trying to draw her back into a dragon's healing sleep, but now that she was awake she didn’t want to sink into that syrupy darkness. She was being called. Instead she struggled through the gap, grumbling at finding her body sluggish and unresponsive. The issue at this point wasn’t so much Hubert’s spell - magic that weak could only sink so deep. The problem was the blood that seeped sluggishly from her arm to drip onto the cool stone. It wouldn’t kill her the way it might kill a human, but it was still deeply unpleasant.

Edelgard took a sharp inward breath. “I can help you. Let me.”

She didn’t need help. All she had to do was sleep it off… but the promise of recovering faster was hard to put aside. There was no doubt Flayn would start asking questions if she slept for too long. So she allowed herself to be drawn to sit on some wooden crates and nudged to take a seat. Edelgard's gaze fixed on her injury for far too long, her voice shaking a little when she finally spoke.

“Allow me to make this right, Byleth.”

Rather than respond Byleth held out her arm to reveal the wound had gone from black to pale ash. The damage radiated outward from a clear hand print, spreading from her wrist all the way up to her elbow. 

“Can you debride this?” She gestured to the knife at Edelgard’s waist with her good hand. “With that.”

Edelgard’s brows drew together. “That doesn’t seem like appropriate medical procedure.”

“Not for anyone but me.” She always healed quickly, but left alone it was not always the most efficient. Removing the dead tissue would be much faster than waiting for her body to reject it.

Edelgard searched Byleth’s face, and whatever she found there must have convinced her. She took Byleth’s wrist delicately, not remarking on the blood soaking into her white silk gloves. What crumbled away under her blade was more like damp ash. Clouds of white dust hung in the air, catching the light streaming from the door above. Edelgard observed openly, even prodding at the injury with her thumb. Byleth didn't bother stopping that. It wasn't as if it hurt.

“What happened, exactly? This reaction is very strange.”

Edelgard did have a habit of cutting to the more difficult questions.

“I am vulnerable to offensive magic.” The admission left a sour taste in Byleth's mouth. "It’s the only thing that can hurt me.”

She was born with the stone heart of a goddess, but nothing more. The goddess had vacated her throne and for year upon year no matter how Rhea wailed and begged, no one walked the echoing halls of Byleth’s dreams. Healing magic passed through her uselessly, and she had none of the natural defenses against magical attack. Even the weakest human mage could wield more magic than she would ever possess. All her aimless power, and no soul, no  _ will _ to give it direction. However, Byleth would sooner cut out her own tongue than admit as much out loud. 

Perhaps Edelgard realized as much, because she didn’t press that avenue of questioning. If anything she was silent for far longer than Byleth expected.

“If you can trust me with that, you can trust me with the truth.” Edelgard’s voice was steady as her hand around Byleth’s wrist, steady as the slow rasp of the blade. “Tell me. Why were you there that night?”

“I was there because -” she bit off with a hiss as another scrape of the knife caught the living tissue beneath and sent stars crackling across her vision. “I was passing through that night because a man needed to die. North. In Faerghus.”

Edelgard waited patiently.

Byleth took a deep breath and continued, the words tumbling out as if she couldn’t hold them in anymore. “As I was returning on a southern road, someone threw a bag over my head. I let them to see what they were trying to do. I don’t know what they wanted.”

“You allowed yourself to be  _ kidnapped _ to get answers and didn’t even achieve your goal?” Edelgard’s voice was cool enough to make the temperature in the room drop even further. In that moment Byleth wanted to snatch the truth back.

“No.” She stayed in that cell for less than an hour. As her mystery captors lead her deep, deep below the earth the golden thread wound around her ribs for the first time, and she could feel something tugging. It was like _ screaming _ in her chest, not sound but all jagged sensation. “After I found you, I didn’t care.” 

Byleth didn’t regret that. She could have scoured those halls with fire and it wouldn’t have been enough.

“You’re a hired killer. Do you make a habit of putting aside your work for… rescuing girls?”

Byleth shook her head. She wasn’t paid, but somehow Byleth doubted that actually mattered. 

“Do you hold loyalty to the goddess?” Edelgard prodded for more, and Byleth didn’t have the strength to withhold anything. 

“The monastery is my home.” She shook her head again. “I was born here.” 

“You protect everyone here… including me.” Edelgard repeated Byleth's own words thoughtfully, tugging a handkerchief from her pocket to blot at Byleth’s arm.

_ Yes. _ She wanted to say.  _ Especially you. _

But the words wouldn’t come, her head was spinning.

In the months after Edelgard’s rescue Byleth watched over her whenever she had a moment. Woke her from her nightmares, walked with her through the sleepless nights, witnessed silently the way she pushed through her pain. 

_ “I don’t want to spend another day standing still,” _ Edelgard said one night,  _ ”I will walk forward into the future, no matter the obstacle.”  _

_ “I understand,” _ Byleth said, because it seemed like the kind of thing Edelgard wanted to hear. The smile in response was as pale a shadow as Edelgard herself.

She didn’t know what kind of strength made Edelgard’s gaze so certain. Even so... she wanted to understand.

It was the first time that Byleth - the sleepwalker through her own life - wanted something beyond the simple absence of pain. Byleth wanted to see where Edelgard’s path would lead, wanted to see her put her iron will to use. Byleth was a creature of the night, dazzled by her first glimpse of dawn staining the sky endless shades of red. Straining to touch that unattainable color... even knowing it wasn't for her all along.

She _ wanted. _

“Byleth, are you - ?”

As the stone floor rushed to meet her, a smirking voice echoed through the darkened halls in her head. “Oh? So you’re finally awake?”


	8. Small Flowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flayn is a liar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I was wrong, ** TW for more fun skin-melting shenanigans with Byleth and threats of MURDER.**
> 
> Minor announcement: I've gone back and dated all the chapters with the month and year to keep things neater. Hopefully this will help keep the timeline straight in the event of more flashbacks.
> 
> In other news: I'm bribing Symxalia with packs of Monster these days you guys. This is what I do for you. (I'm kidding I love u Symxalia.)
> 
> EDIT: We finally got Byleth's mom's name thank god! Sitri is such a cute heckin name though!

* * *

**Wyvern Moon (October) - 1176**

* * *

“You didn’t tell Edelgard that the Emperor sent her retainer? Even if we are trying to keep things quiet that seems like a little too much.” Flayn slowly disentangled the various pins and clips that held Rhea’s headress in place. When she lifted it from Rhea’s head the other woman sighed with relief. 

“How do you suggest I tell her, dear one? The poor girl becomes frantic when I’m in the room, no matter how she tries to hide it.” Rhea sighed again, working her fingers at the base of her own neck to ease the tension there. “It seems she’s sensitive to my aura.”

The equal measures of adoration and terror that Rhea inspired was partially the result of her - or Flayn supposed it was technically_ their _ \- divine nature. Some were inclined more to one emotion than another, but Edelgard’s intense negative reaction was rare indeed. There were some things Flayn didn’t miss about her full power. This was one of them.

“Perhaps I should have let you give her the news instead.” Rhea continued after a moment.

“It would have made no sense coming from a simple healer,” Flayn reminded her gently. “The person she believes I am wouldn’t know that information.”

“We could have come up with an excuse.” 

“Perhaps, but then we wouldn’t know your effect on her for certain.” Flayn plucked up a ornately carved brush and a bottle of scented hair oil, going to work with the ease of long practice.

Rhea hummed absent agreement, melting a little under the brush running through her hair. There was a ritual to their evening routine often helped set Flayn's thoughts to rest after a long day, and the same was true for Rhea. It was interesting to watch Rhea’s reflection soften in the vanity mirror as the mask of the Archbishop dropped to reveal the woman beneath. In another time they would have bonded with women in their own age groups this way, but there was no one else left. They made do.

Flayn ran a hand through Rhea's hair, earning another quiet hum. If only things like this were enough. There was more history between them than any relationship should rightly bear, but again - there was no one else. Amazing what one could forgive when there was no other option. 

“How is she doing? Byleth.” Rhea’s fingers drummed against the polished wood vanity, a sign of emotion she wouldn’t have allowed except with someone she trusted. “Has she shown any more signs of… strange behavior?”

* * *

**Lone Moon (March) - 1165**

* * *

It was true that many young ones died in the creation of Byleth's mother, but Flayn could tell herself they were stillborn dragons. Born too weak, too small, as any mortal child could be. Each one was the precious blossom of their hopes, and one after another they withered like so many cut flowers.

In the end only Sitri lived to adulthood. She was yet another of those greenhouse flowers, trapped behind glass lest she fade away entirely. Yet Sitri did _ live. _ She turned her fragile strength into such compassion, lived her life so fiercely that the world was left that much darker without her light. It brought Flayn so much joy to recall her walking arm and arm with Jeralt through the monastery gardens, their laughter ringing against the high walls. She deserved that happiness and more, their little flower. There were no words for the raw wound her death left on all of them.

That was why Flayn had to protect the child she left behind.

“Stand down, Flayn.” Rhea said gently, reaching out a cautious hand.

"No. I will not allow it." Flayn curled more tightly around Byleth, allowing a hint of fang to peek between her lips, a touch of the dragon-light to show in her eyes. This was the strength that she couldn’t summon for lesser things. Byleth was so _ small _ and ablaze with fever, dark curls sticking to her damp face.

Flayn poured all the power she could muster into that dry well with no effect and there was no denying what she knew by instinct. This child was a walking wound, broken in a way even she couldn't heal. There were still bandages wound around those tiny hands - the tiny hands Rhea had let grip her fingers, that Flayn kissed, that Seteth held as Byleth learned to walk - as if medicine alone could do anything for bare, bleached bone.

It didn’t matter if they were right. Flayn would die first.

Of course Rhea didn’t falter, but Flayn's show of power alone made her father's eyes widen and he backed away a step, lifting his hands in a surrendering motion. Seteth’s voice dropped, soft and desperate. “Flayn, see reason. You saw what happened. What is happening. This is… This is not a mere flaw like the others. If she turns into one of the feral beasts..."

So many would die. Flayn struggled against tears and cursed inwardly when her vision blurred anyway. Rhea and Seteth already saw her as the youngest and weakest, the one who thought too much with her heart and not enough with her head.

She knew. _ She knew. _

Flayn was there too when her father started transitioning his teaching into practice. Gently moving Byleth’s clumsy fists into the correct forms, just as he did when Flayn was young. Cupping a spark of magic between her palms to learn the gentle pulse of their lifeblood. The magic that protected and sustained their kind, the magic that raced up her arms like hungry flame.

Byleth didn’t even scream.

"This is my burden to bear, dear girl. You need not witness it." Rhea reached out again, but her hand halted just over the sleeping child. Her face creased with doubt that wasn't there before. It was almost sickening the way her eyes darkened with such guilt, such agony. "It was my mistakes that lead to... this."

_ This _ , as though Byleth were an object. If Rhea could not bear to think of her as a child perhaps she should consider _ why _, Flayn thought savagely. It was a struggle not to bear her teeth again even if it would do no good.

"This will make monsters of you. If you do this - If I allow this, the children of the goddess are already dead." She clutched Byleth closer, searching them each for the resolution to do the unforgivable. "Our people can't be rebuilt on the bones of a child."

* * *

**Wyvern Moon (October) - 1176**

* * *

“Well?” 

Flayn returned to herself with a start, and realized the brush had stopped mid-motion. That was the sort of thing that was difficult to recover from, even if her hand weren’t shaking. Sometimes she could set that night aside like an unwanted burden, but she could never forget. As long as Byleth remained stable she was safe. As long as she didn’t deviate in her behavior, as long as she remained impassive. If Flayn failed she would lose all - Byleth, Seteth, and Rhea - because she could not forgive them this. Never this.

It hurt most how much Flayn loved Rhea, because in this they were always at odds. It would be easier if it were evil moved her hand, but the fact was that Rhea was too good. Too willing to tear herself asunder to do what she felt was the right thing. Rhea’s strength was so great she didn’t realize that what she bore on her shoulders was an unbearable burden for others. She broke so many under her purity of purpose.

Flayn couldn't take even one more loss. At times it felt as if her heart would stop beating under the weight of so much grief... and that was enough to make her crumble to her own selfishness. Rhea wouldn't be so weak.

Rhea’s eyes searched Flayn’s in the mirror, a hint of her old steel showing through hard-won softness, and Flayn prayed to the mother goddess that her thoughts didn’t show on her face. She returned to running the brush through Rhea's hair.

“No,” Flayn lied, “She has been her usual self.”

There was nothing else she could do.


	9. Acceptable Burdens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As dearly as Edelgard missed the girl she used to be, she had to let her go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who are curious, yes this is a replacement for the original chapter nine! I wasn't really happy with how the original came out so I decided to do something else. Sorry for any confusion!

* * *

**Wyvern Moon (October) - 1176**

* * *

Edelgard kept reminding herself to unclench her jaw.   


The dark, dripping stone, the close walls, the creak of wood and clatter of metal-on-metal from the kitchens… the blood soaking through her gloves and slicking her palms. All of it was a riptide dragging her down. Every part of her vibrated with tension, and unfortunately focusing on the task at hand didn’t help in the least.

The questions she asked were as much to keep herself in the moment as they were to get the answers she craved. Yet eventually even those the quiet responses petered off. When she looked up from her grisly work, she found the other girl's eyes fixed on nothing.

“Byleth, are you - ?”

One moment Byleth was quiet but conscious, and the next her body lost all tension. It was all Edelgard could do to keep her head from smashing against the stone. She was left with her hand whiteknuckled in Byleth’s shirt. Edelgard lowered her the rest of the way to the floor at the demand of her screaming muscles, and fumbled to press her fingers to Byleth’s neck. 

She couldn’t find a pulse.

Edelgard ripped off her glove and tried again, her heart pounding erratically in her mouth. Nothing. 

Yet as her fear spiraled to new heights of terror, she noticed barely perceptible motion as Byleth’s chest rose and fell. Her relief swept through her with such force she nearly sat back on the floor to catch her breath, and resisted the urge only because she had more pressing priorities. She would have to ask Flayn how to properly take a pulse. 

“Hubert!” Edelgard stumbled over to the staircase and called quietly. “Hubert, come here. I need your help.”

He was down the stairs faster than she expected, nearly barrelling into her face-first in his haste. “My lady, are you -”

“Calm yourself. She hasn’t done anything to warrant that expression.” She felt a little guilty for leaving him behind now, seeing his normally calm features furrowed with concern. “As you can see, she’s lost consciousness. We can hardly leave her here where she could be discovered.”

There was no world in which she would put her back in that lonely little den under the stairs even if she could. She still wasn’t sure how Byleth squeezed through that tiny opening at all.

The real challenge was hauling Byleth onto Hubert's back, as much as it pained Edelgard to relinquish carrying her to anyone else. Byleth was stunningly heavy despite how slim she appeared, all lean, tightly packed muscle like the street acrobats popular in the Imperial Capital. Edelgard supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. As far as she could tell Byleth spent much of her times roaming the roofs of Garreg Mach, and that wasn't even taking into account the fact she apparently roamed far afield as well.

Edelgard made herself useful by finding a clear path to her room - no mean feat when the Monastery was constantly a bustle of activity. She had to shove Hubert and his burden both into a bush on two separate occasions. It reminded her a little of when she used to play at sneaking out of the palace, though the potential consequences were more dire. Thank goodness that she had a private room, unlike the initiate nuns and monks. 

She only paused to peel off her ruined gloves and switch them for a fresh pair, and then she and Hubert were off again. 

It was far easier to talk Flayn into giving her some bandages and ointment. The healer was sweet and trusting to a fault, Edelgard didn’t even have to use one of her hastily prepared excuses. It was more difficult to extract herself from Flayn’s prodding and fussing, and the ensuing lecture to Hubert about not letting Edelgard strain herself. She only managed to escape with a promise to visit the girl for a checkup another day.

When they returned the bed was empty, and Hubert let out a slow hiss of frustration. Edelgard wholeheartedly agreed. Edelgard’s first thought was of an injured cat, nursing its wounds somewhere dark and secluded. So the question was: where would a wounded animal go?

Her eyes landed on the only space large enough to conceal a human. Of course. She didn’t even know why she was surprised.

Byleth was tucked tightly in Edelgard’s newly acquired trunk, thoroughly wrinkling the jumble of spare blankets and winter clothes in the bottom. Her tail curled up over her hip and under her chin, a pillow firmly grasped in her arms. Perhaps it was for the best that her instincts told her to hide. She didn’t even stir at the creak of the lid or the sudden light. A pinch at her cheek barely drew a twitch. She was utterly defenseless like this. 

Edelgard was learning so many of the girl’s weaknesses today.

Hubert peered over Edelgard’s shoulder and snorted. “I see this one has made herself at home.”

“Considering that we’re the reason she’s in this state she can make herself comfortable as she likes.”

At least he had the good grace to hum agreement instead of arguing. He unwound a length of clean bandage, turned Byleth’s arm over for easier access - and paused. “Interesting. Look at this.”

The wound was scabbing over already. Fascinating.

“Can you see why she is more valuable as an ally than an enemy?” 

“I am reflecting on my mistakes.”

Edelgard rubbed her temples and lowered herself into an armchair - the only concession to her invalid state that she allowed Flayn to add to the otherwise standard room. “Hubert, sometimes you are infuriating.”

“Pardon?” He tied the bandage off with a neat little knot, and closed the lid of the trunk with an amused little pat to the lid. 

“Please don’t try to accept blame that is rightfully mine. I am at fault here, as you well know.”

She refused to answer Hubert’s questions or even properly explain what happened in the time since she disappeared. Instead she tried to skip the conversation she knew they had to have, and impulsively tried to introduce him to a stranger that still unsettled her sometimes. Tried to introduce Byleth to a man that most people felt was a threat, let alone a furtive, timid creature that clearly trusted very few people with her existence. It was senseless. A gamble without any favorable outcome.

Byleth and Hubert nearly paid the ultimate price for her carelessness and cowardice, all because Edelgard didn’t have the strength to put everything trapped in her head into words. 

She couldn’t keep running like this, even if the mere thought of speaking of everything that happened made her feel like she could slip beneath the waves of her grief and never see the surface again.

So she took a deep breath, straightening as much as she could. This was a battle unlike any she ever fought - unlike any she would fight again. She needed an anchor, and anything would do… so she reached for the warm resonance in the back of her head. Skimmed her thoughts over its gleaming surface until the ravening memories prowled back to a manageable distance.

“I know you have been wanting answers as to… where I have been. Is it agreeable if I speak now?”

“Of course.” He pulled out her desk chair and took a seat. Then he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his folded hands. He always was an intent listener, even when she was small. 

Edelgard told him everything. Took the metaphorical knife and lanced the festering wound to the bone. She told him about the darkness, and the fear, and the pain. About the creeping madness in the eyes of her brothers and sisters, and how they faded one by one until only she remained. Not in gory detail, of course. To reach the end of the story she could only give him the dry, bare bones. Anything more was beyond her capacity. 

“And that is all there is to this sordid tale.” No matter how everything in her cried out for relief, no tears came. She couldn’t feel anything about it but tired resignation. What was it but one more thing unjustly taken? One more vital, human thing torn from her body? She could start a list but it felt trivial to try to keep track of her scars at this point. 

“I… see.” Hubert said quietly. For once he truly did look like the boy she knew - he struggled to maintain some kind of integrity even with that suspicious moisture in his eyes. It was a sharp reminder that despite his behavior he only turned sixteen this year. 

His next words came out in a harsh rasp, agonized as if he were confessing a crime. “I tried to find you, my lady. I swear that I did not rest, but... there were no leads. Not a whisper. A month ago I heard rumors at court and I used all the connections at my disposal and departed at once.”

The imperial court was a pit of vipers long before her father was stripped of his power, and Hubert sharpened his fangs and his wits there. No doubt his tendency to go behind her back stemmed from those early days. She doubted she would ever know the full extent of his protection and all the ways he shielded her when she was too young to know better. 

To think that he stayed and  _ survived _ despite losing what little power she could provide...

“I can’t imagine your father was particularly helpful.”

“I stole his favorite carriage.” No matter how flatly he delivered that information, Edelgard recognized the amused tilt of his mouth.

Hubert could be so delightfully petty. “I could ask for no greater loyalty,” Edelgard responded with excessive seriousness.

His eccentricities aside Hubert was the first person who walked at her side, and she suspected that at the end of her days he would be the last remaining.

She shifted in the chair, suddenly aware that she held the same position for the entirety of her story. In that motion her hand brushed against a warmth she could feel even through her glove, and Edelgard jerked her hand away with a quiet yelp. Byleth was leaning against the arm of the chair with the pillow still clutched to her chest. No matter how Edelgard cast about her memory, she couldn’t recall when the other girl moved. 

She stirred and blinked up at a Edelgard blearily. “...Nightmare?”

Revisiting her memories still sat heavy in her stomach like a stone, but surely that wasn’t enough to awaken Byleth from that deep sleep? Actually… that would certainly explain a lot of things. It was a long moment before Edelgard found her voice. “It wasn't a nightmare this time.” 

“Feels... like one…” Byleth murmured. Even as she spoke she kept listing to one side and abruptly jerking back awake before she toppled. “You okay?”

“Yes - yes, I’m fine.” 

“Oh. Good.” As if that was permission enough she sagged against the chair… and slid slowly down to the floor with a quiet thump. She was solidly asleep again as if she never woke at all.

Hubert stared down at Byleth with such a puzzled expression that Edelgard nearly laughed out loud. “She is very strange.”

“Yes.” Edelgard sighed, and it took a moment to realize that the curious look Hubert turned on her was because she was smiling. She shook off the expression lest he get the mistaken impression she had feelings. 

Of all the things that were forced upon Edelgard, the one she didn’t regret was the connection between her and this very strange girl. Even if their recent discussion put things in a disturbing light. 

During their evening walks Byleth often flitted into the shadows when an errant patrol passed, and returned only when they were safely away. The rank and file apparently didn’t know about Byleth. By the same token, someone high ranking clearly  _ did _ .

_ I was passing through that night because a man needed to die. _ Byleth’s tone gave no weight to the information, as if she were making a comment about the weather.

For Edelgard they not only confirmed but outstripped her fears. Not only did this confirm Byleth’s connection to a ranking member of the church, but she was an  _ assassin _ . Among the nobility the assassins of the church of Seiros were its worst-kept secret. If the knights were all scorched-earth show of power, the assassins were the unseen hand that struck down those who stepped out of line.

No matter the method agents of the church were equally ruthless and brutal.

Edelgard had an easier time than she wanted reconciling Byleth with the role. Perhaps she was quiet, but she was also stunningly strong and agile, and apparently extracted Edelgard from her captivity without serious injury or pursuit. Above all she was pliable. Docile, even.

Clearly someone else saw her potential as a weapon, and Edelgard wasn’t sure to do with the way her heart clenched at the thought. 

That brought another matter to mind. She couldn’t tell Hubert about certain things, she decided. It was one thing to have an uncanny ability to guess where Byleth was, or to sense echoes of her pain. It was entirely another to put words to sensation and make it real by speaking it aloud. Even so… she needed to impress upon him the importance of their new ally. 

“Hubert. I want to be very clear.” She waited a beat to let the steel in her voice sink in. “If you raise her hand to her again I will treat it was an attack against me. Do you understand?”

“I… understand.” It didn’t look like he really did, his gaze met hers a little too evenly. 

“Do you, Hubert?”

He finally broke the staring contest, a flush rising in his sallow cheeks.There was what she wanted. “I swear to you that I will not discard your trust in me so easily, Lady Edelgard.”

“Thank you.” Edelgard stood, and held up a hand for him to remain seated. “Now. I’m afraid I also owe you an apology.”

“That won’t be nece-”

“Allow me to finish.”

“...Yes.”

“I am truly sorry that you had to carry on alone for so long.” She inclined her head, as much to underline the new nature of their relationship as an apology. “I hope you will forgive my inexperience in this matter, but I will require your services for a while longer.”

_ This is as much as you are allowed to bend _ , her father said once,  _ you are heir to an empire. _ Her father was speaking to her oldest brother at the time. She couldn’t quite recall the reason. Bowing too low to an opponent? Something that felt inconsequential at the time. 

Was the choice of words intentional? Did her father know even then that his waning strength and inevitable fall would crush those below?

When she straightened again she could see the emotions warring in Hubert’s eyes. Perhaps he was also looking into the past, seeking the girl he once defended so keenly. As dearly as Edelgard missed that girl, she had to let her go… and so did Hubert. She would carry the past with her because she had no choice, but it couldn’t bind her any longer. 

“Hubert.Your answer?”

He snapped back into focus and a familiar, cunning smile crept onto his face. “As always, I am at your command Lady Edelgard.”


	10. Whispering Stone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was a girl on the throne.

* * *

**Wyvern Moon (October) - 1176**

* * *

There was a girl on the throne.

There always was obviously - there was  _ another _ girl on the throne. Her eyes were closed, and she was so pale she might be dead if it weren’t for the slow rise and fall of her chest. Sothis was perched sideways on her lap, head resting on the other girl’s shoulder. Her flowing robes shone in the directionless light, her slight frame pulling the tomb into her orbit. One of her hands swept deliberately through long blue hair, gentle in a way that was utterly out of character.

“Welcome back.” Sothis said, a wry smile tilting at her lips. She looked awfully comfortable for someone being clutched so tightly, her robes were irretrievably crumpled under the arms around her waist.

She reached out to touch the familiar stranger’s cheek, drawn by inexorable force… and lightning jolted between them.

The world flipped like a coin, and Byleth opened her eyes. It was a sudden, disorienting transition. 

_She_ was the girl on the throne. Frigid stone dug into the back of her knees, and the weight in her arms was at once unfamiliar and comforting. She held a hand before her face - a soft, scaleless _human hand_ \- and wiggled her fingers. Usually she never inhabited the dreams herself, but always watched from behind another set of eyes. Moving as the stranger-self did, speaking in his voice, thinking in his thoughts. What changed that made her appear physically within the dream? That didn’t make any _sense..._

Byleth yelped at a harsh, tugging pinch at her cheek, and she looked up to Sothis scowling.

“Here you are, finally! I was starting to think you were going to sleep forever. You know, you may be twins but refusing to seperate to this degree is a little much don’t you think?”

“...Maybe?” She said weakly, hoping it was the answer Sothis wanted. 

Feelings were still… difficult. 

For so many years she was less a person than a cluster of animal impulses. Gradually she learned to hide her true nature with the trappings of humanity, but she was little more than a clever mimic. 

It was difficult to name the feeling that gripped her when she caught glimpses of her brother in the place between waking and sleeping. He haunted her all her life. In the waking world as an absence that seeped into her chest like cold water into her boots, and in the dream as a whisper of sensation, memories that weren’t quite her own.

_ “My boy knows his worth down to the last copper,” _ her father chuckled, as if on cue. The shadow of a heavy hand clapped on her shoulder. She was half tempted to follow the scent of sour beer and bar-room chatter, turn a corner in her head and chase the voice down. 

A hand snapped in her face, quite literally snapping her out of being drawn into her brother’s memories.

“ _ Pay attention. _ I’m asking you a question. Now,” she huffed, crossing her arms, “What’s your name, mystery twin?”

“Byleth.”

Sothis’ face softened, just a touch. “It suits you.”

That softness lasted only a moment before she shook away the emotion, straightening with a businesslike demeanor. 

“Now, with that addressed.” She gestured to Byleth - Byleth’s - grip around her waist. “What is this about?”

Byleth considered that, propping her chin on Sothis’ shoulder in the meantime. Part of it was purely tactile, a habit fostered by Rhea and particularly Flayn, but the rest was not as simple. 

“I missed you.” They were goddess and sacrifice, but beyond that Sothis was one of the many lost members of her family. A razor-edged empty space that even Byleth brushed up against if she was unwary. 

That brought her main question to the fore, and she couldn’t catch it fast enough.

“Why did you leave me? Was I not suitable as a vessel?” It wasn’t as if she never wondered before, but the thought never stole her breath like this. Never left her chest feeling crushed. Her hands were shaking, she realized. Weird.

Sothis shook her head with a grimace. 

“It’s not like that.” She prodded just over Byleth’s heart, or rather where it should be. “I’ve been remembering in bits and pieces… and this shared heart of ours is a prison.”

Sothis took a shaky breath, shrinking in on herself. It was too strange to see the proud posture crumble. 

“I had no choice but to escape, and in doing so I left you behind. I am so sorry, dear one.”

That sounded… right. If Byleth were any judge - and she was more well-read on ancient forbidden magic than she should be - she was drawn here merely because of the crest stone. The once-sacred heart of the goddess tore even the fabric of dreams in an attempt to recapture its one and only inmate. Sothis had to gnaw herself free like an animal in a trap, and Byleth knew - in the instinctive way that creatures like her knew such things - that it would be nothing to consume the weakened goddess whole. Even if she were perfect at putting words to her emotions, there was no way to describe the temptation. It was the promise of warmth when all she knew was cold, her inheritance restored.

Her tongue felt like it was made of lead.“It’s okay.”

Sothis’ brows furrowed. “Don’t accept it easily as that. It’s a wonder you aren’t a rabid beast.”

The cold stone in her chest cried out for the soul it once contained. Now that she was aware of it, the dull, insistent sensation was slowly rising to a roar.

“But I’m not.” Byleth managed. Why was it, exactly, that everyone said the same thing? What did she do wrong?

This offering was meant for Byleth, the corrupted Crest stone coaxed in whispers. A vessel was meant to contain, it reminded her. Whether Sothis were willing or not, the stone promised, Byleth would no longer live as though she were already dead.

_ ”You can still choose.” _ Flayn whispered into her hair when she was healing from her first - but far from last - magical injury. She didn’t understand why Rhea and Seteth were suddenly distant.Why they looked at her differently. _ “It doesn’t matter what you are. If you choose to _ do good _ that’s enough.” _

She always held the words close. 

If even Sothis thought she was hanging on by a thread, then what if she couldn’t choose? What if she truly - 

“I’m not a monster. I’m not.  _ I’m not. _ ” Her chest drew tight until she couldn’t seem to draw in air, and the unfamiliar sensation drove her panic to a frenzy. “I - I -”

Her words trailed off into high-pitched, rattling wheezing, her vision swimming. She tasted cloying, charred blood. 

Sothis gripped Byleth’s face, dragging her down so their eyes could meet. “Hush. Even like this I know your heart, and there are no monsters here. Breathe in and out - slowly now. Stay with me, dear one.”

The goddess that Rhea described was something between monstrous and divine. The girl on the throne had a smirk and sly eyes, all too soft and young and real. The gravity of a god mingled with childish softness. Byleth's hands came up to grip Sothis' hands against her cheeks, steadying herself with the weight of Sothis' touch. Her hands were warm. Flayn must take after Sothis, Byleth decided distantly. Her choking gradually subsided to gulps of air, then to something almost measured.

“What are they doing to you out there?” Sothis hissed. Just as well Byleth couldn’t find words, because she didn’t know how to answer the question. Why was this happening now? More importantly, why did Sothis look so angry? "Who thinks that I want to wear a child's skin? What are they trying to make of me?"

Sothis's grip on her face was almost painful, but Byleth couldn't bring herself to mind. Sothis cared.

The realization was like… the weight in her chest lightened by something all ticklish popping bubbling up from her stomach. Like when the season’s first snow fell during the night, and she could sneak away to the white-frosted woods. Whether Sothis was truly the goddess or not, she was something equally important. She was family.

Byleth bumped her forehead against Sothis’ temple, interrupting her slow-simmering anger, “Cousin.”

“...What.”

“We’re cousins, yes?”

Sothis blinked. “...Yeah, let’s go with that.”

Byleth hummed agreement and squeezed Sothis in a hug so tight that it earned a startled huff.

“Now, now. Enough of that.” Sothis shoved Byleth’s face away with her open hand, but there was no venom in her voice. “Show some self control, you’re so immature.”

These memories never followed her into the waking world. Each night she dreamed this dream - a dream of her lost brother, a dream of her lost goddess, a dream of her lost soul. Condemned to jerk awake and prowl in the dark, searching restlessly for the missing something that she couldn’t quite recall. Was she still paying for some past transgression? Was that why she couldn’t remember? Even so... if she held this warmth close enough perhaps it would follow her into the morning. Perhaps that would be enough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering why Byleth is referring to Sothis as "cousin" even though Sothis is obviously her great-grandmother, that's because (at least in my headcanon) linguistically Nabateans have a term for peers born in the same generation. Sothis is essentially allowing her to be very familiar. 
> 
> However I'm not Tolkien so I'm not gonna make a whole actual language. 
> 
> Also be nice to me my dudes, my beta has left me here to die.


	11. To Nourish Vipers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fodlan is in political turmoil - and that is the time when assassins do their best bloody work.

****Ethereal Moon** (December) - 1177**

* * *

Restlessness was Edelgard’s new norm. 

After Byleth healed her absences grew longer, her presence more fleeting. Sometimes she was nothing more than a passing ripple at the edges of Edelgard’s perceptions, there and then gone before they even met face to face. Whatever bound them together didn’t seem to last over the distances she was travelling. The little information Edelgard could pry out of Byleth suggested that these frequent expeditions were unusual... and that was very, very troubling. 

Hubert’s contacts were little help, meager as they were. Secrecy was often slow. Letters moved at a snail's pace smuggled in wagons or by horseback rather than by wyvern. 

In the meantime Edelagard found other things to distract herself, lest she lose grip on her senses. She was healing faster than anyone expected - faster than was normal. The wooden training axe she picked up to work off some energy splintered within the first week. The second week she cracked her sparring partner’s shield and broke the head off another axe.

She tried very hard not to think about any of it, even as her curiosity clamored for her to test her new strength further. 

That was how she ended up slipping out of one of the late-night winter feasts with weapon in hand, boots crunching through the layer of half-frozen snow. The training ring was dark for once - the lighting of the torches neglected for eggnog and a place by the fire. Privately Edelgard was grateful for that. The stained glass windows threw brilliant lights across the training ground’s sandy floor, the air itself frozen into stillness except for the distant strains of talk and laughter. 

It made each moment feel endless, Edelgard’s burning muscles and protesting lungs an afterthought to the flow of one form into the next.

And then a shadow flickered in the corner of her eye, and muscle memory reacted before her brain could catch up with her distant body. The impact raced up her arms with enough force to rattle her teeth in her skull.

Dark eyes shifted from Edelgard to follow the haft of the axe, neither Byleth’s hand nor her voice wavered under the weight. “Don’t do that.” 

“You -” Edelgard gasped in a breath, what felt like hours of fatigue hitting her all at once, “you should know better than to sneak up on a warrior holding a weapon.”

“You shouldn’t be using live steel at all.” 

When Edelgard was a child the head of her axe was wood rather than steel, but the weight was still comforting in a way few things were. She would be damned if anyone would take it away from her now. If it were anyone else Edelgard wouldn’t even try to justify herself. 

“The healers gave me permission.” She reclaimed the axe with a gentle tug, and Byleth released it without a fight. 

Edelgard’s words came out more accusing than she intended, but Byleth’s expression warmed. “Then you’re getting stronger? Good.” 

That almost-smile was so honest that it made the hair on Edelgard’s arms stand on end, but Edelgard shook the dazzle out of her eyes before it could settle. No matter how she felt like one at times, Byleth was no moon-struck vision. 

The brilliance that showed itself only by moonlight was worn threadbare, her lean frame bent and so brittle it might break at a touch. She was still in her usual grey armor, her boots, cloak and trousers soaked with snow and mud. Did she walk straight from the road to the training grounds without stopping? 

“Are you all right?” Edelgard closed the distance before she could think to do otherwise, and pressed her palms against Byleth’s cheeks. Feverish warmth soaked through the kidskin of her winter gloves. 

“Tired,” Byleth murmured, eyes sliding closed, leaning into Edelgard’s hands with such unreserved surrender that it almost made her snatch them away. It was too easy for her to draw Edelgard into her orbit. Edelgard’s heart couldn’t trust it, shying away like a horse from a shadow or flicker of bird’s wings.

“What have you been doing that tired you this much?” Knowing Byleth spent her days as an assassin, Edelgard had to ask. Any scrap of information could be useful.

Byleth didn’t open her eyes, lips pulling away from her teeth to reveal a flash of fang. Her tail twisted against the back of her calves. 

“Tell me.” Edelgard pressed. Byleth crumbled easily under pressure, but it was a delicate thing to get her to talk without prodding her into silence. It was an art that Edelgard struggled with, since she wasn’t very patient by nature. 

“The royal family of Faerghus was assassinated. The prince and his retainers disappeared, and it’s not certain if they survived. There’s… political unrest.” Byleth opened her eyes, and whatever she saw in Edelgard’s face made her startle away, muscles coiling tight like a startled serpent. “It wasn’t me. I was only there to find out what happened.”

“Oh.” There were some things that hit with the force of the sky falling, and this was one of them. She barely even registered Byleth shepherding her to a nearby bench, gently coaxing the axe from her hand and letting it fall.

“Come here.” Byleth opened her cloak with an outstretched arm, and for a moment - with her angular features and cool eyes, with her horns and fangs - she looked like a dragon from a storybook. 

The world was distant, knocked off its axis._ Is that what you are? _

Byleth gestured to the space under her sodden wool cloak. Her leather armor was coarse and studded with metal rivets. Purely from a comfort standpoint it wasn’t that inviting. Strategically, however, it was the best move to accept. Byleth’s protective instinct was the weak point that Edelgard needed. 

She didn’t even seem to register Edelgard’s calculating gaze, or if she did her expression betrayed nothing of her thoughts. Not that Edelgard expected that it would. 

“Okay.” 

One step and Byleth quickly enveloped Edelgard in thick wool and a sweet, bitterly smokey scent that she only recognized as beeswax and pitch when Byleth’s armor creaked. Waterproofing. Edelgard applied it to her armor too, though she mixed hers with less pitch.

The cool air stung her face but next to Byleth her body warmed quickly, pushing back the chill of the night and her grief at the same time. It was unfortunately pleasant. “Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome.”

She never quite knew what to do with the weight of those dark eyes. They neither judged nor demanded, only observed with the quiet detachment that shouldn’t feel as reassuring as it did. It was as if she could accept anything with that same dispassionate gaze.

“My mother married King Lambert of Faerghus.” When Edelgard finally left Faerghus her mother stayed behind. Edelgard took a breath, trying to force air into uncooperative lungs. “She let me go and I still -”

She knew Patricia couldn’t keep an imperial heir. With the appearance of her crest, Edelgard’s position in court was ensured whether she willed it or not. Even so Edelgard was a child at the time, and knowing her reasons wasn't the same as understanding. Even now she missed her mother. Wished for something of her to hold close. Her memories from_ before _ were fragmented - details that didn’t matter sharp as day, the people she once loved tattered outlines. 

“If the entire royal family is dead, then I doubt she survived.” She had to say it out loud, because the alternative was hope, and how could she bear waiting for something that would never come?

“Sorry.” It was of course little comfort, but the arm around her shoulder drew her a little closer, tucking her a little deeper into the cloak. As if Byleth could ward the world away with that alone. “...I also lost my mother.” 

Byleth’s hand curled ever so carefully around hers and Edelgard was briefly distracted with the pebble-smooth rub of scale against leather, the needle-sharp tips of Byleth’s claws catching at thin hide.

“I was too young to remember her so I don’t think I understand.” She glanced down at Edelgard out of the corner of her eye, claws . “But if you need someone to listen…”

Edelgard felt a prickle of anger run down her spine. Anger at the unfairness of the world - at the greed that drove her siblings one by one to gibbering madness and death, at her own wounds that dragged her down. Angry, despite the fact her own plans to take advantage, that Byleth was so perfectly molded that she seemed to ask permission even to be alive. She wished desperately for something to tear down that would set right all that was wrong. 

Here was the thing that burned the most: All of Byleth’s strength and she still danced like a puppet on a string. Such rare power and she did nothing with it but_ kneel_. As horrible as it was, Edelgard wasn’t sure if she could forgive her for being gentle to the point of vice. Those emotions were entwined to the point of being almost indistinguishable: the anger on Byleth's behalf, frustration with Byleth for allowing this treatment and herself for wanting to take advantage of that very weakness. The knowledge that Edelgard was on the edge of becoming the very thing she despised. 

Perhaps Byleth sensed the stab of emotion because she drew away a fraction.

“You’re angry.” 

Edelgard’s first instinct was to deny it… anger wasn’t seemly in a girl or a noble. She was both, which meant she had to be twice as self-contained. “And if I am?”

“If you were,” Byleth said carefully, tilting her head so she could meet Edelgard’s eyes. “I would wonder why.”

How could she even count the ways?

Edelgard pulled off one of her gloves, flexing her fingers in the half light. The roughly carved runes in her palm were still fresh and shiny. Byleth’s attention was thoroughly captured, as she knew it would be.

“I’m not special. There are many like me, Byleth. People who are hurt because they are too weak to fight back.” She had been turning the thought over in her head almost since she was rescued, looking for the shape of a world where her siblings didn’t have to die. “I am the future Emperor of Adrestia, if there is anyone who can change that… I’m uniquely positioned to do so. I have the power - the responsibility to change this world or die trying.”

Edelgard clenched her hand into a fist, scar tissue drawing painfully tight. “I don’t understand why you enforce the will of the church knowing that the evil they do outweighs the good.”

Was the chruch responsible for her specific scars? Perhaps not - she had no way of knowing for certain - but she did know that their hospitality had to be a cover for other motives. It wasn't as if her enemies would show themselves so easily. Every noble with a working brain knew that the church was the hand behind every throne, that the common people could hold loyalty to the ruling lords or the church, but rarely both. The silent struggle went back generations and was particularly contentious between the church and Adrestia, whose emperors longed for true freedom to rule.

However Edelgard's reasons for distrust were more personal, simpler than she would like to admit. She couldn't trust anyone who would look at this gentle, quiet person and proceed to put a weapon in her hand. That painted Edelgard as no less a monster, but that irony wasn't lost on her either.

Whatever reaction she imagined, it wasn’t for Byleth to take the newly bared hand in both of hers. The smaller scales that ran from Byleth's hands to her elbows had a texture like fine beadwork, smooth and surprisingly pliable. She turned Edelgard’s hand in hers, opening Edelgard’s fingers with delicate plucks of her claws. Her touch followed the scars and calluses as though reading Edelgard’s fortunes in the lines of her hands. When she finally lifted her gaze her pupils were narrowed into catlike slits, and Edelgard felt the full weight of her gaze for the first time. Not empty observation but judgement, as if she were being weighed and measured by something outside her understanding. 

“Would you have me destroy your enemies instead?”

A claw ran down Edelgard’s cheek, leaving a stinging path in its wake, but somehow she couldn't move. Edelgard's vision narrowed down to those blue-black eyes, her heart pounding in her ears.

“Would you have me bring you their hearts ripped from their chests? Would that be making better use of me?”

The question was almost as empty of inflection as always… but not quite. Like a rumble on the edge of hearing, like the first wisps of smoke before the fire took hold of dry wood. It sent a chill racing down her spine, and Edelgard was suddenly, sharply aware of the fact that she barely knew Byleth. It was easy to forget with her echoes in Edelgard’s head. 

“Yes.” Edelgard managed, though her mouth was so dry it was a wonder she could form words at all.

That claw carded gently through her hair, tucked a strand behind Edelgard’s ear with deliberate care. There was something painfully tender in Byleth's eyes, before that too guttered out like a low-burning candle. She was herself again. “Okay.”

Ice crept through Edelgard’s veins, and in that moment she wasn’t sure which of them was breaking.

Edelgard pulled free from the cloak, the sudden chill of winter biting right through her clothing. She couldn’t quite bring herself to meet those eyes, feeling somehow that she’d failed a test she didn’t understand. “...But there’s no need for something dramatic as that. I only need you to carry a letter.”

Byleth shook her head. “I can’t move without an order. They will notice if I leave for no reason.”

They? More than one? Edelgard tucked the information away. One day she would find out who held Byleth’s leash, and she would wipe them from the face of the earth. That, however, was an issue for another day. Edelgard straightened as much as she could, channeling the imperial blood in her veins. 

“You have your orders. From me.” Perhaps it was reckless, perhaps it went against her own plans, but some part of Edelgard wanted resistance. She hoped for Byleth to have the capacity to refuse, or to side with Edelgard, anything other than passive compliance. “Come to my room tomorrow night. I’ll have the letter ready for you.”

Any answer would do, anything except: “Yes.”

“Excellent.” She was never one to back away from any challenge, even when she was a child. Always too stubborn for her own good. This though… she couldn’t bear it. She took up her axe and left Byleth sitting on that bench. There was no other word for it - Edelgard fled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the gap in posting, guys! My grandmother was in the hospital over Christmas and it really slowed down my writing. Hopefully things should even out after this though!


	12. The Sky Opening Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thia finds comfort with one of her oldest friends, and considers some new perspectives.

* * *

****Ethereal Moon** (December) - 1177**

* * *

Byleth didn’t stay for long after Edelgard left. 

She found herself clawing up the side of the cathedral, wandering over the windswept roofs. There was no comfort there even if she wanted any, and even the biting cold didn’t ease leaden heat flowing through her veins. It grew until it crushed air and voice and thought out of her body. 

There was only the dark and cold, and the hope that somehow she could outrun the things swirling in her head.

In the end she crept into the darkened kitchens through the window with the broken lock, slipping down to a wooden box tucked between the woodpile and the potbelly stoves. 

The white cat rose with a drowsy trill and arched back, fluffy tail fanning up in greeting. The cat’s skin hung loose around her bones, and when she walked Byleth could almost hear the creak of her joints. Despite her frail state the old dowager still had clear eyes, and her coat was well kept.

She was Marzipan’s many-times-great grandmother, though he hadn’t inherited her temperament. In her youth her noisy battles with the hunting hounds earned her some minor fame among the squires, and like any lady knight they called her by her proper title: Dame. 

Byleth scooped the cat into her arms as gently as she could manage. Dame only warbled her usual complaints about her old bones before slowly, painfully curling on Byleth’s chest. She tucked the old dowager up under her chin, gratified to feel a reedy purr start up. 

The lingering smell of roasted vegetables and melted cheese made her mouth water after so long on meager road rations, but she couldn’t bring herself to dig up something to eat. She slid down the wall and buried her face in fluffy fur. 

It felt like letting out a long-held breath. At least her touch was still careful enough that this fragile thing didn’t crumble. At least this was safe in her hands. That scratch on Edelgard’s cheek could have as easily laid her open to the bone with what - to Byleth - was only a hair more pressure.

She just needed a moment to gather herself. That was all.

Byleth’s knuckles smoothed over a raised scar under fur, and remembered it fresh and bleeding. The Dame didn’t know she was being rescued. She didn’t know the difference between cruelty and kindness, between the hound’s teeth and a child’s hand. Flayn had to pry her off of Byleth’s arm and wrap her tightly in a towel to stitch the wound closed. 

Byleth’s hand paused. Traced the old wound again. 

_ She didn’t know how to accept help. _

In her mind’s eye she could picture another little hunter, who lashed out with her claws even when she didn’t quite mean it. From that angle… some things made a lot more sense. Byleth gently pried the complaining cat from her shirt, setting her aside. Then she stood, and went to find the girl who didn’t know how to be saved. 

A quick investigation revealed that Edelgard wasn’t in her room, which meant she was wandering in the dark and cold. Couldn’t she take better care of herself? There were only a handful of places she could be at this hour, so it was a matter of eliminating them one by one. Eventually Byleth narrowed it down to the maze of roses that surrounded the gardens where the students took tea.

It was as close as anyone could get to alone in the monastery, deep in the gardens where the thorns snared even raised voices. There was a reason that the students preferred their teatime there, why the young nuns and monks slipped into the maze of roses with cake and cups of spiced wine. In this season there were nothing but dull, dry stems, not yet trimmed back for the spring growth.

Edelgard sat at one of the tea tables, her eyes closed, folded hands pressed against her mouth as if in fervent prayer. In the blue light she resembled one of the marble statues that lined the halls of the church. 

“Can’t sleep?” She didn’t feel one of Edelgard’s nightmares rippling through the dark, but with the brooding storm on the other end of the connection she might not even be able to tell. 

Edelgard didn’t lift her head. It was troubling in the girl who never bowed to anyone or anything. “You certainly don’t learn from your mistakes, do you?”

“No?” 

“You should. You should know better than to - ” She bit off the end of the sentence, leaving it unfinished. Edelgard’s eyes could be cut gems, without any softness to them. Only a cold fire.

The sight distracted Byleth enough she only managed to fumble out a quiet: “I - I’m sorry.” 

Apparently that was the wrong answer, because Edelgard’s jaw clenched and she looked away. The scratch stood out against her pale cheek, marking the momentary lapse of Byleth’s control. 

Byleth belatedly realized that made little sense out of the blue. 

“Not about that - ah, about this,” she gestured at her own cheek, then vaguely at Edelgard. “I’m sorry that I… hurt you.”

What she said never mattered until now. All the shades and shapes of her thoughts were difficult to name, like a puzzle she had to put back together without knowing what the pieces looked like assembled. But she had to try.

“I was angry. You keep taking things… but you don’t have to order me. I don’t need persuading or deceiving.” Anger: the word felt too small to contain the emotion, the way it twisted inside her like a living thing. She snapped the last words, felt her lips curl up and her fangs flare like a serpent. “I _ chose _ to help you.”

Edelgard straightened as tall as her height allowed and took a step closer, snarling right back with her pathetic human teeth. “What exactly do you want? I barely know you, what makes you think I’ll trust you with my plans?”

It was true, and that was the worst part about it. Even with this connection, with their shared anger jumping between them like lighting between the earth and sky - what real bond did they have? What was this but a bond born from chance? 

Byleth doubted herself for a breath… and then she saw Edelgard straighten even further, her hands curled into fists. Edelgard was so small, and so strong, and it made everything in her ache to pull her closer. She hated being angry, she decided. Hated the way it swept wildfire over her thoughts and left only blackened intentions in its wake. 

If these were Edelgard’s claws they weren’t enough. She took a deep breath, and searched for the words because there was no alternative but silence. And she couldn’t be silent any longer.

“I want you to stop trying to take advantage of me.” She took a tentative step closer, and Edelgard didn’t waver. Not even when she reached out and followed the scratch on Edelgard’s cheek with her knuckles. 

There was a tide swirling in Byleth’s chest. Not just from the link between them, not an echo of another. It was hers. Flooding in, pouring in, something that made her eyes burn. “It makes you sad.”

“That’s not just me.” Edelgard murmured, admitting nothing but the steel in her eyes wavered. “It makes you sad too, doesn’t it?”

Oh. It did. “Yes.”

She remembered that first night, torn between the iron-clad law of _ do not be seen _ and the simple fact that she couldn’t turn her back on this. She could see that same battle play out on Edelgard’s face: training warring with instinct. There was a streak of falsehood in Edelgard that Byleth understood. It was Edelgard’s armor, as much a part of her as Byleth’s claws and scales. There was no way to tell which side won, to tell whether she was being true or false. 

Edelgard didn’t quite soften, but the corners of her lips twitched reluctantly upward. “I don’t understand you.” 

“You’ve made that very clear.” 

Edelgard held out her hand, palm open, her jaw tightening around some emotion Byleth didn’t have the words to name. The sun was breaking over the horizon, the blue light of morning giving way to red. Even as she watched the light flooded over Edelgard, staining her pale features in the colors of dawn.

Byleth took the offered hand and felt her almost withdraw, a breath of hesitation as if she didn’t expect it would be accepted. Some shadow of a thought quickly banished in the light of day. Whatever was going on in Edelgard’s head, it made her stand and close the distance. Pushing up a little to bump her forehead against Byleth’s shoulder like an affectionate cat. 

Other than a few slips, Byleth usually did her best to keep her touches brief and clinical. It wasn’t easy. If there was one thing Byleth never lacked as a child it was touch, and the habit was so ingrained that action followed thought. 

However this was an invitation. And one she had no intention of turning down. 

She slung an arm around Edelgard’s shoulders, and bent to nudge her forehead against Edelgard’s temple. There was no way she expected Edelgard to welcome her back like this… but as the nights grew longer and colder it was the subject of more than a few of her idle fantasies.

The reality didn’t disappoint. She was softer than Byleth remembered, all her starvation-hardened edges smoothed over with warmth and rest. Edelgard’s arms slid around Byleth’s waist. She could feel Edelgard’s hands turn into fists against the small of her back, her entire body shaking with the force of holding on so tightly. Her own face was cold, she realized, because when her cheek brushed against Edelgard’s it felt like it was burning up. 

“I don’t think that you remember, but I carried you from that place. I want you to know that… I think I’ll carry you always, now.” Byleth allowed herself to tuck Edelgard closer, instead propping her chin on top of the other girl’s head. Her hair was fine and soft, perfumed with the incense and candlewax that colored those that called the monastery home. “You don’t have to lie to me. I’m on your side.”

Edelgard hissed. “I can’t.” 

“Give me a chance.” She pressed quietly. She almost wanted to hold her breath, as if she could startle Edelgard away like a hare or stag, but she didn’t dare stop lest Edelgard interrupt. “You keep making the choice for me. Did you think I wouldn’t choose you?”

If there were a conflict in that choice she didn’t or _ wouldn’t _ consider it. Her family or Edelgard? Byleth couldn’t set aside one for the other... but could she choose both? It was a question she didn’t want to examine.

”No. No, in my wildest imagination I didn’t think that you would.”

It was like the rain falling in scattered droplets, one here, another there, until all the world was drowned out by rain. That was how Edelgard finally broke down crying.

Byleth froze, not daring to move or even breathe. Did she ever see Edelgard cry? She couldn’t recall one time... Edelgard didn’t even cry in her sleep, no matter how her dreams made her suffer. What could Byleth do and how did she fix it? Somehow they ended up sinking to the ground, the snow soaking through the knees of their winter clothes. She bundled Edelgard against her chest, holding her tightly against the bone-rattling sobs that Edelgard did her best to muffle against Byleth’s shoulder.

All she could do was wait for the storm to pass, bewildered by this sudden turn of events. She couldn’t know that this was a good thing, the sound of the sky opening up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just started a new job, yay! But now I have no time to write, shit.
> 
> So this has like, virtually no editing and also my beta has officially left the building. So be patient with me! I'm doing my best. :P


	13. I'm Alive, I'm Alive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edelgard discovers some fun things about dragons, and Sothis has some things to say.

* * *

****Ethereal Moon** (December) - 1177**

* * *

Edelgard didn’t know how long she cried. All she knew was that by the time her tears subsided she felt lighter than she had in a very long time, like a mountain pass scoured by the spring rains. She was still tender as a lanced wound, but it was a bearable pain. She’d lived with worse. It turned out what made her falter wasn’t all her grief coming to a head. It was when, after escorting her back to her room, Byleth started to slink off wherever she went during the day.

“Wait.” Edelgard caught at Byleth’s arm and dragged the other girl through her door. It was a strange sensation, since it was clear Byleth going along was the only reason she could move the other girl. She was heavier than Edelgard expected. 

After a moment staring at Byleth, she found her words: “Stay. Just for a little while?”

She didn’t want to be separated. Perhaps it was childish clinging to the other girl as though she were a child’s bear, but she still couldn’t bring herself to let go. She still felt… unmoored, in the wake of her tears. Unfortunately she didn’t fully consider the ramifications of dragging Byleth into her room at this hour of the night. Or morning, she supposed.

“Um.” Byleth lowered her head almost meekly, the scales on her face making the slow migration up her cheeks and back of her neck. Her eyes glinted in the thin beams of light streaming in through the window, and her clawed hands flexed almost pointedly. “I can sleep in the chair.”

“I’m not going to make you sleep in the chair.”

Byleth opened her mouth. 

“Or the floor.”

Byleth shook her head, and tried again -

“Get in the bed, Byleth.” Damnit, she needed to work on her tone. “...Please.”

“Okay.” Byleth climbed up over the foot of Edelgard bed and skittered up to plaster her back against the headboard. Like a cornered animal. By every one of her ancestors, that wasn’t what Edelgard intended at all.

Edelgard could do better. If she could repay even a fraction of this kindness, if she could lift even a fraction of the burden that Byleth had just lightened… 

“I didn’t… listen, I want you to be comfortable. I - It wasn’t my intention to force you to stay.”

“I don’t dislike sharing a bed.” Byleth’s tail slid against the mattress, sibilant against the coarse fabric.

Edelgard waited. 

“You’re… important.” Byleth finally muttered, coiling in on herself. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Byleth was difficult to read, but Byleth seemed so _diminished_ when her eyes darted back up to that tiny scratch on Edelgard’s cheek. Compared to the scars Edelgard bore it felt barely worth acknowledging, but she suspected it had to do more with the act than the wound itself. Byleth was always so careful, so deliberate in everything she did. Even when she unraveled like she did in the rose garden, she was more sound than fury. Edelgard settled on the edge of the bed. 

“Look at me.”

Byleth refused to meet her eyes.

So Edelgard reached up and took Byleth's face into her hands, trying to draw her back into the conversation. If it were another time, she might have been rougher about it. She never did have a delicate touch. Perhaps she picked up a few things from Byleth despite herself. 

“It’s just a scratch.” She rubbed her thumbs over Byleth’s cheeks, trying to - she didn’t know. Sooth, perhaps. “Don’t sulk over things that have already passed. It’s not becoming.”

Even knowing Byleth’s tendencies, she almost expected Byleth to react the way she would. To push her away, or at minimum freeze under her touch. Instead her eyes slid closed, as transparent a pleasure as Edelgard could imagine seeing on the other girl’s face. Was it wrong to feel her heart leap into her mouth?

Wait - what was that?

Byleth pressed a hand over her own mouth, but it did nothing to stop the sound. Her chest hitched again, and this time Edelgard couldn’t miss the muffled trill caught in Byleth’s throat. Still she leaned into Edelgard’s hands, as if she couldn’t resist the touch anymore than Edelgard could stand the thought of withdrawing it. 

_Peep. Peep. Peep._

Dear goddess. Edelgard felt utterly knocked on her ear, almost more than the revelation that the girl under her hands could peel herself apart in toothy, chaotic layers. The world was hard and cold and monsters only made sense. The soft sound didn’t. It made Edelgard’s lips twitch despite herself, no matter how she tried to keep a lid on her smile. 

“What is that?”

“N-nothing.”_ Peep. _

“It doesn’t sound like nothing. I would say it sounds like something.”

Byleth shook her head a fraction, enough to deny the accusation without disturbing Edelgard’s hands.

“It’s a good sound,” Byleth mumbled after a long moment, and with her hand still over her mouth it was nearly inaudible, “Like - it’s warm, and safe. And I’m... happy to be here. With you.”

All the air rushed out of Edelgard lungs, and for a split second it almost sent her into a panic. In the next fraction of a fraction of a second, she realized it was because she could scarcely handle the thought of causing that tiny, fragile sound. 

“That doesn’t sound like something to hide.” She managed through her dry mouth, a nervous giggle working its way out of her throat. 

Byleth shook her head again, but whatever she might have said was lost. Because in that moment Edelgard’s attention was sharply diverted. The scales under her hands were disappearing.

“Byleth.” Edelgard could scarcely believe what she was seeing, so that she barely registered Byleth leaning into her palm beyond the warmth of soft skin.

“Hmm?”

“Are you doing that on purpose?” When she pulled her hand away the strip of human skin remained. She traced the curve of Byleth’s jaw, and the scales melted away under her fingertips. 

Byleth rolled her shoulders as though shrugging off an unwelcome weight. “I don’t think so. It happens sometimes.”

“And you can’t…?” A curious touch revealed that Byleth’s horns remained solid and smooth under her fingers. Not a trace of vanishing the way her scales did.

Byleth closed her eyes, and Edelgard immediately regretted the question. It felt, ridiculously, like the dragon was trying to hide from her gaze without withdrawing from her touch. “You’ll be disappointed. Please don’t ask me for more.”

“I already like you as you are, there’s no need to fear.” The answer came out before she could tweak it into something palatable, something political. Before she could lace it with hooks or barbs, before she could make it into something false even if it was mostly true.

It was ridiculous. What a fool she was when it came to this silly creature.

Eventually between them they managed to fumble their way into the bed. The dorm bed that came with the room scarcely large enough for one person, particularly one that thrashed in her sleep most nights. Even so, it was close and warm, and that was what Edelgard craved above all else. Byleth ended up curled on her side with Edelgard fitted into the space that remained, her head propped on Byleth’s arm and her legs slung over Byleth’s legs. A little like sleeping sideways in an armchair, which Edelgard could admit she did some nights when terrors and restlessness drove her from her bed.

It was as far as she could imagine from when she slept with her sisters as a child - she could distantly remember a bed large enough to fit half a dozen of her siblings - but it was still comforting. Odd, perhaps, to have her companion curl around her like a large dog. But not unpleasant. She only regretted accidentally banishing Byleth’s good mood. So Edelgard gently worked her fingers through Byleth’s tangled mane, allowing herself to forget for a moment the reality waiting outside her door. To forget, frankly, all good sense. Encouraging this closeness might be short sighted and foolish, an impulse she would regret… but honestly? Edelgard didn’t give a fuck. 

She forgot so thoroughly that she didn’t worry about nightmares.

* * *

The heavily domed ceiling was cracked down the middle, allowing green light to filter down on a stone throne in the center of the chamber. Blackened stone radiated from the throne and spiraled up the sides of the chamber all the way up to the ceiling, speaking of a mighty blast that tore the space asunder. Moss and flowers sprouted up between the stones, and some of the pillars listed alarmingly under the burden of the ceiling.

It was peaceful as a long-abandoned tomb.

“Well, well, it’s about time we met.” 

Edelgard turned to the source of the light, young voice, and nearly stumbled backward in shock. 

The space in which she stood had a dreamlike quality, but it still felt solid. The girl, the woman, was an indescribable, shapeless thing. Her edges blurred as she moved, leaving splintered afterimages in her wake. Sometimes she was echoing, ancient eyes peering out of a child’s face, sometimes a woman with a crooked smile that didn’t quite match her gravity. As if _untethered_, Edelgard thought, from time and physical form. It gave her a splitting headache if she stared too long.

The woman looked Edelgard up and down. “I expected you to be taller. You look like a seedling sprouted under a rock.”

“Did you invade my dreams to insult me?”

The woman snorted. “I hardly came here on purpose. And this is not your dream, it’s hers.”

It would be inaccurate to say that Byleth appeared in the throne, as if drawn from thin air. It was more like Edelgard abruptly registered her presence. Which should have been nigh impossible, because she was even more eye-catching than usual. Her scales glittered silver-bright and her branched horns held the light like finely carved marble. Maybe it was some strange property of this place, this dream, but Edelgard could see the phantom of fluttering wings, jaws bristling with teeth. The vague outline of a dragon trying to burst from beneath her human skin.

Byleth and the woman were two of a kind - half-made, slowly unravelling things.

“Byleth?” She called quietly, wondering how it would look when the other girl opened her eyes. Would she too be followed by phantoms of her dragon form?

“Don’t bother.” Sothis poked Byleth’s cheek more forcefully than Edelgard liked. There wasn’t even a flicker of movement, as though she were carved from stone. “There’s no waking her when she’s like this.”

“Why not?”

“If I knew that this would be a livelier place, I can assure you.”

“This is _her_ dream?” Edelgard had spent weeks feeling something shifting, but this was far from what she expected from what was growing between her and the gentle dragon.

“Yes. You were drawn here, somehow. Even so, it was quite rude to accept the invitation.”

“My apologies.” Edelgard couldn’t quite keep the dry amusement out of her tone, but who was going to judge her, the dream woman?

“I’ll accept them on her behalf, but know I’ll be keeping an eye on you until you vacate this place.” The woman lifted her chin with an air of such transparent arrogance that Edelgard nearly laughed. 

“And what should I call you?”

The woman’s smile was almost wry. “I am The Beginning. You may call me Sothis.”

Edelgard stumbled back a step. She felt as though she were struck by a bolt of lightning - all breath knocked from her lungs. Perhaps she was already sprawled on the floor, and her brain simply hadn’t caught up with her body yet._ “You.”_

Sothis nodded, unperturbed. “Me.”

“Are you aware of what evils have been committed because of you? What was done to me, my siblings?” Edelgard only realized she was shouting because of the way her throat hurt - her ears were ringing too loudly to tell. For one wild moment she wanted to rend her own shirt open and confront the goddess with her scars. It took her several long, slow breaths before she could continue with any semblance of coherence. Despite herself, the words came out as raw and exhausted as she felt. “Did you know? Or do you simply not care? Is it that you’re indifferent to our suffering?”

When she looked up she was surprised to find the goddess watching her with an expression that was too carefully composed to be truly calm.

“I have been dead for a long time, girl. Whatever you attribute to me, to my will… was not under my control.” Sothis didn’t falter. Her eyes met Edelgard’s with steady assurance, even though she looked almost as sick as Edelgard felt. She wasn’t unmoved, untouched by Edelgard’s outburst. Sothis only lowered her eyes when she lowered her head, dipping into a bow that Edelgard distantly recognized as going far below the gesture of a peasant to a monarch. “Whatever crimes have been committed against you in my name, I am truly sorry.”

It took the wind out of Edelgard’s sails, but not the fire out of her blood. She wanted to rage. She wanted to tear that beautiful, shattered face even more asunder. She felt like a coal pressed to skin, burning and burning without the mercy of extinguishing. At first she wondered if it was an effect of the Crest of Flames, but the truth that revealed itself day by day was far worse. She hated, she hated so fiercely, and no matter how she tried it lingered sickly as tar in her lungs. 

“You’re forgiven.” Edelgard croaked, and the sick feeling in her chest only deepened. 

“Don’t lie to me, child.” Sothis straightened, her expression too tinged with pity for Edelgard’s taste.

“I… don’t want it to be a lie.”

“It is what it is. Until then, I can bear whatever anger you hold for me.”

Edelgard swallowed down her storming emotions. “I have a request. A question.” _You owe me._

Sothis hesitated, but only briefly before she lifted her chin imperiously. “For you? I will give you what answers I can.”

“How am I here? How are we -” Edelgard gestured at the tomb, “- Byleth and I, like this? How did I… how did I survive, when my brothers and sisters didn’t?”

Below her words the real question thrashed and howled. _Why? _

“I have little understanding of such things. My memory is fragmented.” 

Edelgard’s face crumpled, and Sothis’ eyes slid away and then back again. 

“But I do know - _see_ things beyond mortal knowledge. And if I were to draw conclusions from what I’ve seen of dear Byleth…” At that her hand brushed over Byleth’s cheek, and for a moment she looked like a true goddess. Those green eyes glanced back up and pinned Edelgard in place with the terrible tenderness in her gaze. 

It almost ignited Edelgard’s temper again, despite herself. How could the goddess love her now, far too late to avert all that had passed?

“My Crest of Flames very nearly burned you to ash, as it would mortal that tried to grasp its power.” She hesitated, lingering over her thoughts in a way that reminded Edelgard of Byleth’s considered silences. “But by your good fortune, this child passed near enough to siphon away the greater part of its power.”

Sothis huffed, and she looked like a prickly child again. “As if she needed more of that.”

“What does that mean?” Edelgard remembered little of that night, but she doubted the feeling of burning alive from the inside would leave her for the rest of her days. “What does that mean for her?”

“Her? She’ll be fine. You, however -“ Sothis’ jaw clenched. “You were not as well fashioned for it as she was, child.”

Oh. “Oh.”

Goddess, it was a relief. Ever since she woke at Garreg Mach she felt an impending disaster drawing ever nearer, a clock ticking, ticking at the base of her skull. Here it was and all she could feel was relief. Perhaps this was madness - the comfort of pain and fear sliding onto her shoulders like a well-worn coat. 

She straightened the best she could, even has the grief and rage curled into a tight knot in the center of her chest. This she could understand, this she could bear. She could.

It seemed that the goddess could not. 

Sothis sat down on the arm of the throne, running a hand down her face. Her posture was weary, but the expression that struggled to surface on her features sent a chill down Edelgard’s spine. Disempowered as she apparently was, there was still a unique weight to the fury of a god. As if the air itself crackled under the weight of her displeasure. 

Edelgard wasn’t even sure if she was being addressed. 

“It’s true, that child once lacked the spark of the divine.” Sothis spat, and her saliva steamed on the stone. “‘Thou shalt not take what belongs only to the gods.’ - that is the only law I gave to them. Was it that difficult to comprehend?”

Sothis exhaled sharply, and for a terrifying moment it looked like she might cry. “But she is still a child like any other, whatever else she may be. Any child would break, treated like this.”

Her gaze snapped back up to Edelgard, eyes dark and deep enough to drown in, and Edelgard could see how Byleth could descend from this creature, this god, with those eyes that swallowed the light. “Any child.”

She stood and approached and reached out, and for Edelgard each motion was disjointed as if her mind couldn’t put the pieces together into a coherent whole. Until her arms wrapped gently around Edelgard’s shoulders, pulling Edelgard into a hug.

Edelgard’s thoughts cut short. She could scarcely remember the last time she experienced a parental touch. The memory was locked away like so many others, but she was certain it was the last time she saw her mother. She could almost smell her mother’s perfume and feel the embrace crushing her like a farewell with no reunion to come 

“I know your heart, child, as I know hers. I have become a part of you, whether either of us wish it.” Sothis shook her head. “You have both survived… horrors. I could not help you then, but now I can offer you what little strength remains to me. I believe that you will fly further than any of my children, with or without my help.”

“I already have a mother.” Edelgard muttered into her shoulder. She couldn’t remain silent. There was no world in which she could keep those words locked behind her teeth. Because whatever else happened Edelgard was her mother’s daughter. Even if she alone remained to maintain that bond.

She expected fury, or at least offense, but she could as much feel the smile against her hair as hear the dry amusement in Sothis’ voice. “And I already have many children.” Sothis pulled back, and the interplay of her stuttering form with the firmness of her embrace was enough to make Edelgard’s head hurt. “I can’t remember their faces either.” 

Edelgard froze, her heart leaping into her throat. All the strangeness of this place, of the goddess, suddenly piercing her like a lance once more. How much did she know? 

“I only get glimpses of your memories. But for this - I have also crossed the line between life and death and returned. There is much lost to the void, even for one such as I.” She drew back a little more, her smile a raw-edged thing. “I do not seek to replace your loved ones in your heart. Only let me ease the pain you were caused in my name.”

“...That much I can do.”

Sothis smiled, and for a brief moment all her scattered pieces were pulled into alignment. She looked like… a person. Tall and stately, wrapped in the robes of a noble from a time long ago. An ordinary woman nonetheless, like many other women who had lived and died and passed from memory. 

Perhaps there was some truth in her claims. Perhaps she truly didn’t turn away from Edelgard’s suffering. It was somehow a balm on the rage that burned in her heart - even the goddess couldn’t have saved Edelgard from the pits of her own personal hell. 

Sothis pressed her lips to Edelgard’s forehead, and as the world tipped and whirled Edelgard she heard the goddess’ last words clear as day: “Do not forget, dear one. You do not walk your path alone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've been wrestling with this chapter for actual months and now I can't stand the sight of it. As is my habit, you guys now get to read it regardless of how good or bad it is! Enjoy.
> 
> By the way, I'm thinking about doing a timeskip after this. What do you guys think?


End file.
